When you want to use paid search marketing platforms, Google Ads often leads the list. Because of its versatility, simplicity, and popularity, it’s obvious why it’s a popular choice. But when you drop all of your PPC advertising money into one marketing strategy, you could lose some leads.
That’s why some businesses explore paid advertising marketing outside of Google, with many turning to Linkedin Ads.
Google Ads and Linkedin Ads are highly efficient ways to market your products and services to businesses and consumers. But each marketing channel has its advantages and disadvantages. Whatever you choose, make sure you discuss the matter with your web development company.
Below is a closer look at each option.
We think it’s reasonable to conclude that Google reaches a vast audience worldwide – its ad reach is a stunning 4 billion people. Google search handles about 70% of desktop searches, and many companies report that they get about 90% of their organic traffic from the search engines. Also, up to 95% of the mobile search market comes from Google.
People use Google’s search a lot, and having the ability to target search terms with specific search ads is a massive benefit of Adwords. People tend to search for very specific things in Google, so if you can customize your Google advertising for your targeted audience, you’ll receive plenty of leads.
So, we can assume that most people’s targeted audience uses Google to some degree. That’s a massive advantage for companies when they want to target an audience.
However, businesses that want to narrow down their search may have issues getting their Google ads settings right with both Google Ads. And if you blunder when segmenting your audiences, your digital ad campaign could suffer.
LinkedIn features a narrower audience – 500 million users – namely businesses and business professionals. But this more limited audience makes it the perfect place for effective B2B marketing. LinkedIn lets marketers serve online ads to decision-makers and vital audience members in several ways.
Summary: For B2B firms that want to reach decision-makers, Linkedin is a terrific advertising platforms. If your B2C company intends to increase its reach, Google Ads could be the best fit.
When you target your audience with Google Ads, you have a few options: location, affinity, technology, buyer behavior, demographics, and interactions with your app or website.
No matter how much you know about your buyer, you may struggle to avoid clicks from worthless leads that cost too much.
In some cases on Google, people may not even know what they’re looking for. You can try to advertise to your desired targeted audience on Google Ads, but it can be challenging to get to the precise people who will most likely buy what you sell.
When people sign up for LinkedIn, they usually provide many details, such as their occupation, title/job title, experience, industry, education, interests, and more. All of this information can be leveraged for great advantage when you start your marketing campaigns.
Also, LinkedIn users can join many groups, start conversations, and obtain followers. The data is priceless when you want to target a specific audience and market to them. LinkedIn also has a Matched Audience that helps advertisers match their email marketing lists and website visitors with users on LinkedIn.
Many marketing experts think that LinkedIn Ads offer more value. LinkedIn has refined targeting, and you can make your product known to them so that you can tell them about something they didn’t know existed.
Summary: For B2B and B2C companies looking for a broad audience, Google Ads has enough targeting features. But for B2B firms that want to target specific groups, LinkedIn Ads has about 100 segmentation methods for micro targeting.
When you want lead generation, Google Ads has a broader reach and is the most effective. First, you can bring in a lot of prospects to your site without breaking the bank. The audience you’re after on Google visits the search giant with the idea to find the best product or service. This makes generating leads easier.
Getting leads from LinkedIn can be more challenging. Users of the platform may sign in to read industry news or talk to group members. No matter how perfect your ad is, viewers may not be in the mood to buy anything.
That said, Linkedin has a way to target ad leads through in-site messaging, which can generate plenty of leads.
When it comes down to dollars and cents, LinkedIn Ads usually are more pricey than Google Ads. As in Google, you can select cost-per-click or cost-per-impression.
LinkedIn also features a cost-per-send for InMail advertising. Typically, you’ll pay about $5 for each click, $6 for 1,000 impressions, and .80 for each send.
With Google Ads, the average CPC is $1. But to leverage that low cost, you need to work on your audience segmentation. If you don’t your ROI may be below what you want.
Summary: Advertising budgets for each platform depends on several factors. On average, Google Ads cost less than LinkedIn Ads. If your B2B company has a tight budget, you may want to focus on a limited variety of LinkedIn ads instead of a broad range of Google Ads.
So should you advertise with Google Ads vs LinkedIn Ads? Yes!
What we mean is, it depends. The correct choice depends on your budget, product or service offered, marketing goals, and target audience. You should not assume that when you need a digital marketing campaign, Google Analytics Adwords is the only choice.
It’s critical to evaluate the market, understand who your buyer is, and make a data-driven decision about the best marketing platform to reach your well-defined goals. One type of company might do better with Google Ads, and another may find LinkedIn Ads preferable.
The great news is you don’t need to choose between the two platforms. Many businesses use both, as well as Facebook, Instagram, and others. If you have the budget, it may pay off to diversify your paid search advertising to get the best ROI.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Digital marketing is a classic marketing strategy that’s commonly used to supplement organic web traffic, but it’s hardly the most straightforward way to increase your site’s audience. In fact, from a technological perspective, it’s a rather fussy practice. That’s why brands that want to include a PPC marketing strategy in their overall strategic decisions need to work with an experienced agency. Agencies facilitate ad distribution, track clicks, and calculate fees – and the best ones can help their clients thrive. Unfortunately, there are a lot of subpar agencies and bad actors out there, and you need to know how to spot them.
So, how do you know if it’s time to fire your PPC agencies? Keep an eye out for these 9 red flags. They could indicate you’re working with the wrong agency and that it’s time to make a move.
Companies leave their PPC agencies behind for all sorts of reasons, but according to a 2015 report by the Society for Digital Agencies (SoDA), the most common reasons include outgrowing the agency’s capabilities, cost overruns, and dissatisfaction with their strategy. These are all valid reasons, and ultimately many of them can be reduced to an agency’s failure to generate any or enough growth. After all, disliking the agency’s strategy isn’t likely to be much of a problem if that strategy is generating major growth. Similarly, a brand is unlikely to view itself as having outgrown the agency is their accounts continue to grow.
Ultimately, what these different reasons for firing PPC agencies demonstrate is that, any way you slice it, no one wants to work with an agency that isn’t making them money. So, while it might take a little while for your PPC ads to gain traction, if you’re not seeing growth based on the launch of or changes to your PPC campaign, it’s time to move on to a different agency.
While most brands work with a PPC advertising agency to run their campaigns, it’s not only possible but advisable for you to set up your own accounts with the major PPC advertising platforms, which include sites like Google AdWords, Yahoo, and Facebook. Still, if you’re not the most technologically savvy, it can be tempting to let your agency do it for you. Don’t give in to the impulse. Instead, ask them to guide you through it so that you can ensure that you’re the one with owner access rights.
Unless you have the owner access rights to your company’s PPC accounts, you can’t be sure you have unmediated access to your campaign metrics or feel good/ confident that you’ll be able to transfer your accounts to another agency or bring them in-house if needed. In other words, your agency could be misrepresenting best results to you or could refuse to relinquish control if you end your contract. You need to retain those rights and then give your PPC agent the appropriate permissions to manage your campaigns. If they balk at this arrangement, show them the door.
Typically, when you look at your company’s profile on a site like Google AdWords, you’ll see that your PPC agency has set up specific goals to help your business grow. These commonly include such metrics as Cost Per Acquisition, Return On Advertising Spend, and Cost Per Lead, though there are plenty of other valuable metrics that are worth tracking. Such measurements assure you that you’re spending your Digital marketing money in the right place, help you budget for ad spending, and offer insights into what’s working and what isn’t.
Unfortunately, you’ll occasionally encounter PPC advertising agencies that fail to set up these metric reports, and they’re not to be trusted. Even if they claim to be using an in-house system, it’s your right to demand they use the standard reporting system for each PPC platform and to fire them if they refuse to. Dashboard-based metrics exist to provide consistent measurements regarding the success of PPC campaigns ad those are the numbers you want to reference.
In a similar vein, some PPC advertising agencies skip the core metrics noted above in favor of less valuable but more appealing “vanity metrics.” Vanity metrics don’t help your business make money and they offer limited insight into your operations. Examples of vanity metrics include any campaign value based on impressions, engagement metrics that don’t drive conversions, and even many of the behavior-based metrics that used to be considered the gold standard in website evaluation, such as bounce rate or time on site.
Ultimately, vanity metrics don’t serve your company because they can be created artificially. An untrustworthy PPC agency might drive up engagement numbers by sharing a great meme on your brand’s landing pages, which will drive likes and other reactions, but won’t actually funnel clients to your site or create sales. Similarly, you can get a huge number of impressions by getting your PPC new ads onto a very popular site, but if no one is clicking on it, all you’ve got is a tally of how many people visited/ web traffic to someone else’s website.
Having the right metrics is important, but if you’re going to meet your goals then your Good PPC agency needs to be adjusting your account settings regularly to refine your campaigns. At a minimum, that means accessing your account to regularly monitoring and fine-tune the settings at least once a week. Such regular check-ins allow your agency to quickly adjust your social media campaigns based on updates to the search engines algorithm, catch any conversion mistakes that could cost your company money, and even react to competitors campaigns.
Be sure that you not only ask your PPC agency how often they access and update your accounts, but that you’re also checking your accounts regularly for updates. The reality is that, although many companies run PPC campaigns, only 10% of AdWords accounts are updated weekly. If your PPC agency can’t meet that standard, ditch them for one that will stay on top of your campaigns.
Just as your PPC agency needs to be fine tuning your accounts regularly, they should also be reporting back on your campaigns at least monthly. While seeing week-to-week progress would be great, as with many kinds of growth, this can be hard to evaluate. Comprehensive, monthly reports, on the other hand, can help you see what your agency has been doing on your behalf, how your accounts are growing, and allow you to be an active participant in your Digital marketing strategy.
Never settle for a company that doesn’t offer substantive reporting. While great reports may offer added insights from your account manager or more labor intensive explanatory work, the majority of PPC reporting is automated – any company that doesn’t provide it is just lazy.
It’s unrealistic to expect that you’ll speak to the same person every time you contact your PPC agency; that doesn’t even happen at your bank or your doctor’s office. That being said, there should be one person who acts as the lead on your account because that allows them to master your brand’s voice, develop a big picture strategy, and generally build up a knowledge base around your brand’s needs and preferences. They might be busy or out of the office occasionally, but anyone whose experienced both approaches – a core account manager and a rotating cast of agents – can tell you that having a point person makes a difference.
If your PPC agency doesn’t have you working with a single, core agent, you may want to ask a few questions to get a better sense of what’s happening. Do they have an unusual in-house strategy, or are they having trouble with employee retention? Do they think it doesn’t make a difference? You can also request that they place you with a single representative, but if that’s not their standard practice already, you’re probably better off going elsewhere. It just doesn’t bode well.
Google AdWords isn’t a new program and there are plenty of other PPC programs out there, but if an agency is committed to this work, then they should have complete Google’s AdWords certification program. You can check on this by asking them to show you their Premier Partner page – it really is that simple. Not having one isn’t necessarily the worst offense a company can commit, but it’s a good indicator that you can do better and should commit your ads spend elsewhere.
Did you pick your PPC agency based on their portfolio of appealing PPC ads/ads or optimized images? That’s a great starting point – it certainly indicates that they can do high-quality work – but it’s not enough if they’re not actually showing you your brand’s own ads before they launch them. Obvious, right? It should be, but many entrepreneurs have been duped by PPC agencies who tell them that their ad is similar to another ad product, which is called ad copy; the client, not wanting to be pushy, walks away with their own notion of their brand’s ad, and meanwhile the agency may not have done any work at all.
Your PPC agency should be giving you the final say on all your paid ads, so if you’ve supposedly got a campaign running and you haven’t seen your ads, ask to see them right away. Odds are good that if your agency isn’t showing you your PPC ads before launching them that they either don’t exist or they’re extremely low quality for online visibility. Great PPC agencies are proud of their work and they want you to see it. Anything less should raise concerns.
Hiring an agency to manage your PPC campaigns will obviously cost more than just the fees for the campaign itself, but the costs involved in running ads with your agency shouldn’t be confusing. That’s because, ultimately, your money should only be going two different places – to the agency and to the ad platform – and everyone at the company should be clear on the split. So, when we say you should be wary about confusing fees, we’re not talking about total cost (that’s a matter for you and your budget), but rather about how the money is split up. For any payment there should be the fee to the agency and the ads spend and it should always be obvious what the division is there.
As popular as PPC marketing is with businesses today, many of the agencies that execute these campaigns don’t do a very good job. They’re wasting your ad spend and your time, and you deserve better. That’s why you should switch to PPC.co’s PPC Management Service.
At PPC.co, we’re committed to ensuring that your ads are reaching the right audience and we know that most agencies just don’t deliver that. Starting from our understanding that website conversions often top out at 2%, we emphasize PPC marketing that pairs first contacts with retargeting efforts to ensure that your brand remains a top-of-mind solution for past visitors. A non-converting visitor is often just someone who hasn’t seen the right content yet, and we want to help you make those connections.
What else makes our PPC Management program stand out? With dual Google Ads and Google Analytics certifications, we have a deep understanding of the systems & AdWords account that get your ads seen and can use tracking data to its fullest potential of web traffic. In fact, that’s why we start every client engagement with a full PPC audit, because even when we’re not leading the campaigns, our skilled professionals can quickly see what’s working and what’s falling short in your current campaigns. From the start, we put our expertise to work for you.
If your PPC agency has exhibited any of the above warning signs, you can’t afford to wait around for progress. It’s time for the protection of business and moves on – to PPC.co. Contact us today to learn more about our PPC Management Services and say goodbye to wasted ad spend and rock bottom conversions. Once you’ve seen the difference a top PPC agency can make in your campaigns, you’ll never believe you let anyone else handle your PPC needs.
Paid search marketing is an effective way for brands to generate qualified leads and a higher return on investment. So it’s no surprise that they are always on the lookout for more customers and better sales.
A service that offers quality pay-per-click solutions is bound to attract the interest of this new business and do well.
While it is a fantastic idea to start an agency and offer tailored PPC solutions to clients, you probably have the following questions:
Before we delve into the answers, let’s outline the services you can offer and pricing models that can help you build a strong PPC agency.
PPC or pay-per-click advertising ensures that the advertisers only pay if their ad gets clicks or responses instead of paying merely for displays.
Formerly known as Google AdWords, Google Ads is a renowned platform for PPC advertising. However, your client may also want to show their PPC advertising on other search engines like Bing. These platforms power google ads by prominently displaying them above and below organic search results.
As the chosen agency, it’ll be your job to create these PPC advertising campaigns and run them on these networks and others like Google Shopping and the Display Network.
Besides, your client may also want complementary services like social media advertising strategy to run adverts on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter.
Chances are that your clients want a comprehensive solution for all their paid ppc advertising needs. They want to rely on you for all-inclusive online ppc advertising campaign management.
Agencies that provide these managed services have a full-time staff dedicated specifically to PPC, contingent on the scope of their offerings.
In addition to planning and optimizing paid advertising campaigns on multiple social networks like Bing, AdWords, etc., the account managers also look out for client relationships. They have frequent interactions with customers, provide regular updates, align efforts with clients’ marketing goals, and report on performance.
Let’s delve into some of the many services that your PPC agency can offer to clients in addition to standard account management:
Add this service to your repertoire if you aim to sell to clients who want you to build their presence on Google AdWords, Facebook Business Manager, and Bing Ads. It demands detailed knowledge of:
From initial planning to execution, account buildouts may take up to several weeks, depending on the clients and own business size.
If you can’t build, assess, and optimize your client’s landing pages, you’re confining your managed PCC services offering. After all, if you don’t have control over the online spaces where the paid traffic goes, it undermines your capability to maximize impactful results.
While some agencies leave landing pages to the client, we suggest adding them to your line up. Small business plan don’t have a dedicated digital marketing department to take care of it, so they’ll appreciate it if you can handle this aspect of their campaign as well.
Handling landing page optimization allows you to add more value to your offerings and set you apart from competitors who aren’t providing the same service. But remember to onboard dedicated development and design resources, and don’t be afraid of reflecting it in your pricing.
Suppose a client has an uncontrolled account structure, got an account responsibility from an associate, or took back their account control from an agency. In that case, an account structure service can serve as a value-added package to the clients.
When pricing these services, consider the business size, historical data, and the client’s marketing objectives to determine the time, resources, and efforts it’ll take to restructure a specific account.
While you may take the reins of your customer’s PPC campaigns, you may not be able to get done with the essential design work. As Facebook ads and display ads require visual creativity, it can be time sinking to put all the elements together.
So if you don’t have an in-house team for designing and have a few trusted freelancers, make sure you work and add their rates into the final billing structure.
Account audit services are solely the analysis of your existing accounts. They are usually reviewed over a telephonic conversation with agency clients and transcribed in report form.
Consider charging a standard rate for account audits. Once you have created a thorough yet quick process, you can also offer audits as a complimentary service. After all, it represents a fair amount of value for your prospective client’s, and they’ll jump on the opportunity to work with you as long as they are getting something out of it.
Additionally, it shows the opportunities for growth and PPC optimization that can be the force to help you need to turn a potential lead into a client.
One of the most in-demand business services that you can offer is strategic consulting as a PPC agency. However, there’s a catch: you need to have intimate knowledge of the services you plan to offer.
Suppose you aim to provide consulting services to your clients. In that case, you should identify potential opportunities and educate your clients on how to implement changes strategically.
You can conduct the consulting sessions via a web conference call. The charges are usually determined hourly, depending on the experience, target market, and service.
Conversion tracking and implementation are some of the other services that you provide to your clients. It is the least time consuming yet incredibly valuable for your customers. That being said, helping customers install codes on their sites also allow you to retain more clients.
You can charge a flat rate for conversion tracking services or even provide them for free. Since execution may occur at the beginning of a client relationship, it can be a brilliant way to build trust, loyalty and deliver value to your clients.
Once you have decided on the pay per click (PPC) services you plan to offer, you will be required to design a pricing model and packaging structure. These are many common elements to consider to set up your pricing structure.
Set up or start-up fees are usually indicated by the initial overhead costs of taking on a new account. It can include substantial groundwork to get familiar with the new account, acquainted with the customer’s marketing plan approach, and make necessary structural changes.
Start-up charges are often levied as a flat rate one-time fee that ranges from 50%-100% of the recurrent monthly amount. As for recurring expenses, there are numerous ways to model your pricing structure.
The rate varies and significantly depends on the level and quality of service you are providing. For instance, do you offer paid social? Weekly reporting? Display Network management?
But for many agencies, the charges are based on a pre-determined percentage of google ads spend.
This pricing model considers the services’ total cost and charges a percentage of your entire ad spend. Provide a unified experience to your clients in every aspect, and you can set a premium price for the value you are delivering.
One of the advantages of charging your clients a percentage of total ad expenditure is the gain you can enjoy when an account decides to increase its budget. That way, you can earn additional revenue. On average, the PPC management fee ranges from 15% to 25% of the total budget.
To ensure constancy in their revenue streams, some PPC agencies opt for the flat fee pricing model. It lets you charge the client an even rate or an agreed-upon fee each month.
This pricing structure allows greater budget flexibility without continuous fluctuations in income. However, some clients may be discouraged by the radical increase in service charges when you decide to do so if that particular account performs well.
This includes charging a flat management fee on a monthly basis plus a lower percentage of your overall ad spend.
This solely depends on the additional services you plan to offer, so pricing varies from service to service.
For example, services such as account buildouts, restructure, and consulting may be best to charge on an hourly rate basis. Whereas for streamlined services like implementation, analytics, account audits, a flat rate is typically suitable. You can also potentially add-on design, image optimization or other SEO services.
Once you are ahead of the pricing structure and models stage, the final step is to get the word out! It is imperative to communicate a consistent message across all platforms, from your official website to your marketing collateral to your own paid campaigns.
Along with all the other arrangements, it is unequivocally imperative to let potential client’s know about your new PPC services offerings.
Dedicate a part of your site to market your PPC offerings to the traffic. Additionally, specify the extent of your services and the different plans and packages available.
One of the challenging things for entities entering the paid searchs sector is establishing their authority. What makes your new agency qualified enough to sell or manage online marketing solutions for your clients? How can you gain your prospective clients’ and visitors’ trust and persuade them to do business with you?
One of the ways to do so is through attaining certifications. It may take some time to get the necessary credentials, make it essential to get endorsed by renowned platforms like Facebook, Google, and Bing. This can help you to establish your business as a bonafide expert.
Once you scale up your offerings, you can leverage the initial accreditations and display them on your website. It allows you to instantly clout with skeptical clients.
Another way to establish your authority as a PPC agency is to ask and publish customer testimonials. Suppose you have worked on some great projects. In that case, you can ask your clients to leave a review about their experience more apt to consider your services. Naturally, potential customers love social proof!
The bottom line is that paid search advertising is an integral part of your clients’ inbound marketing approach. A strategic PPC initiative can help you better plan, execute, and optimize your offerings for potential clients and grow your business over the long-term.
Catching a prospect’s eye is merely the first step. Once your leads know about your PPC offerings, nurture them and turn them into actual paying clients.
It’s that time of year again, budget meetings and market analysis time. With this comes the endless work of figuring out your advertising budget for the year and figuring out whether your advertising is working properly.
The good news is that will all the advancements in technology, there’s more information out there than ever to try and figure out what is and isn’t working.
The downside, of course, is that it is pretty much impossible for someone to actually look through all the information available without wasting a ton of time.
The real trick is not just making sure that you are looking at all the relevant information, but also making sure that you are looking at only the relevant information. In short, when it comes to PPC metrics/PPC campaigns metrics, you want to ensure that you are pinpointing the correct KPIs to focus on.
Pay per click advertising is quickly becoming one of the simplest and most cost effective means of getting your brand out there. With all the free extensions that custom tailor your ad experience to reach the customers you need it’s important know what data matters and what to look at.
All PPC’s have KPIs (Key Performance Indicator) that tell you how well that ad is performing. Most of them are fairly standard and should be part of everyone’s advertising report. Number of clicks, sales, return visits, all these things are important to your marketing budgets
Some data though, not so much.
Here is a freebie: the percentage of customers with red hair probably is not a valuable KPI.
There are a ton of different metrics that you can use to evaluate PPC marketing campaigns, but for the most part, they are going to be split into three different categories: traffic data, conversion data, and sale data. We are going to go a little deeper into each category in this article, but here is a simple rundown of the big three:
Ideally, your marketing analysis should be focused on all three of these categories.
Traffic data is probably the most dense of the three. You can learn a lot from all this data. User locations, likes, habits, demographics, all sorts of key persona information about potential customers.
This is useful stuff, and is often worth a deep dive, but it is not exactly the magic bullet KPI that we are looking for here. For traffic data, there are basically two major PPC metrics that you are going to want to check first:
If you’re using a PPC campaign then you probably know at least that much. The trick is figuring out whether or not it’s working.
For instance, if you have one campaign that costs $2 per click and gets you a CTR of 4% and a second campaign that costs $5 per click but gets you a CTR of 5%, you might think option two is better.
However, the cost per click is more than double so the CTR increase isn’t worth the advertising cost. Knowing this one metric is the difference between brilliance and disaster, unless of course you like throwing money away, but we figure you don’t.
The most important piece of data here is conversion rate, which is essentially the percentage of people who become customers after visiting your site. The average conversion rate can vary wildly depending on the industry and the services you actually provide, so you would have to look at industry-specific info to figure out whether you are performing well with your ad PPC campaigns or not.
You should be looking at your conversion data alongside your traffic data so that you understand how many users are visiting and out of those, how many are buying. The key question you want to answer is “Is my sight working? “ .
If people are visiting and not buying, then the answer is a flat no. Figuring this out will help you identify the problem instead of changing your ad campaign or throwing more money into advertising. If people are visiting but not buying, then the problem isn’t the ad, it’s your site.
The other big question is “Am I reaching the right people?” This is also best done by looking at traffic data and conversion data together, especially demographic and interest data. If you are a divorce firm with a low conversion rate and a CTR that is highest among the 14-19 age group, then you can probably figure out that the issue is not with your website. You cannot sell divorce to teenagers, no matter how good your site design is.
So, since your business makes money through sales and not through clicks, sale data is going to be the ultimate arbiter of whether or not your PPC marketing strategies approach is working for you. You do not just want to know if your Google ads are catching eyes, or creating customers, you want to know if they are driving sales.
The best metric for this is going to be ROAS, or “return on ad spend.” Basically, you’re finding out if what you’re spending on Google ads is translating to more sales for your business. We all have to make money to stay afloat, but if your advertising is costing more or even almost as much as you’re making from customers, then it’s not working.
At that point, it’s about taking an inventory of what ads are working and aren’t and eliminating waste. It’s easy to just let ad campaigns go since PPC is easy to automate, but at the end of the day, you’re ad spend or spending money hoping to make more than you’re spending, if that isn’t the case, your business won’t last.
While most KPIs include quantitative data analysis, there may be some qualitative issues you should track that may not be included here. For instance, understanding how your online brand is perceived and working to fix that may be more important than CTR. After all, who would convert to a brand who’s preceded reputation was sullied and irreparably harmed?
A KPI that is important to one company may not matter right now for another. What performance is considered “good” for you, another company may not care about. Track what matters for revenue, but also consider tracking areas that are sometimes hard to measure and not easily understood.
So, now you know what data to focus on. Hopefully, this makes managing your marketing budget a little easier and points you in the right direction when deciding on your next PPC campaign.
In the world of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and sales, it’s easy to get so caught up in the top of the funnel that you totally forget the bottom of the funnel and everything that happens in the “post-click” environment.
As important as pre-click elements are – including ad optimization and audience targeting /target audience– the reality is that you can’t complete the conversion without a compelling landing page. And one of the most significant elements of a great landing page is the effective landing page headlines.
Every landing pages has a number of vital elements that are integral to creating a meaningful onsite experience and ultimately driving conversions. They include:
But all of these important factors are a waste if you don’t get the headline right.
The PPC landing page headline is the very first thing a visitor sees after clicking the PPC ad and landing on the page. If it’s irrelevant, inaccurate, vague, or boring, you have almost no chance of converting.
Outside of page loading speed, the headline is arguably the first decision point for a visitor. It gives a reason to either stick around and learn more, or bolt for something else.
Headlines, regardless of whether it’s a landing pages or newspaper, have always been treated like gold by copywriters and marketers. David Ogilvy, who is known as one of history’s greatest copywriters, was adamant that headlines are to be given the focus they deserve.
On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar
he once said.
And while most marketers and copywriters think about headlines after everything else has been created, Ogilvy and other industry legends have always been adamant that the headline commands more attention.
Ogilvy had an unofficial principle that he called the 50/50 Rule. This rule states that you should spend at least half of your time and effort developing and iterating the headline. In other words, if it takes you two hours to write copy for the rest of the page, you should spend one hour brainstorming and optimizing the headline.
While Ogilvy created this rule with ad copywriting in mind, it’s still a valuable rule of thumb for landing pages/landing page headline. And with all of the advanced split testing that we can do with same landing pages, the value of spending more time with headlines is clear. The more headlines you can drum up, the more likely it is that you’ll laser in on the recipe that works for your target audience.
Headline writing is a mixture of art, logic, psychology, and persistence. It takes time and experimentation to land on the right “formula.” And while experience is the ultimate weapon in this war, here are some tips and tricks you can use to shorten the learning curve and get better results in less time:
There are three main characteristics that every headline should always possess:
Think of your headline like a three-legged stool. If it’s missing any one of these elements, the stool loses its stability and topples over. You might be able to prop it up, but you won’t be able to sit on it.
As you craft your headlines, keep these three characteristics at the core. It’ll serve you well as you learn to develop high-converting landing pages.
The headline is important, but do you know what the goal of the headline is? (Hint: It’s not to generate a conversion or produce a sale.)
The only objective of the headline is to get a visitor to read the subheading. And then the main objective of the subheading is to get the visitor to read the next line of copy, and so on.
Don’t feel the weight of trying to convert someone in 10 words or less – there’s ample room to do this below the fold. Your goal is to reaffirm their decision to click on the ad and give them a reason to keep reading. If you can do that, it’s a win.
It’s difficult to hit on everything you want to cover in one headline. Thankfully, you also have the option of creating a subheader (which is basically just a smaller heading that goes directly beneath the heading).
The subheading can be a bit longer and include more characters. It’s used to clarify, restate, or expound upon what was stated in the headline. In many cases, it lists off additional benefits and, as previously stated, serves the purpose of pushing a visitor’s eyes further down the landing page.
Specificity converts and generalities tank.
If you want to generate better results with your headlines and drive higher conversion rates for your landing page, it starts with being very clear. You might push some people away, but your clarity will bring the right people into the fold.
Think in terms of specific claims and clarifying language. If you’re selling consulting services, don’t talk in terms of serving “business owners” or “entrepreneurs.” Get super specific about the types of business owners and entrepreneurs you’re communicating with. Are they small local restaurant owners? Are they growing digital marketing agencies?
Don’t make vague claims about how something works. Instead, use data, statistics, or quotes from customers. Always avoid the macro language when you have the opportunity to go macro. You’ll speak to a smaller group, but that group will be so much more invested in what you have to say.
Length is another important element in headline writing. You want the headline to be short enough for a visitor to focus and long enough to include everything that needs to be mentioned. Where does the sweet spot lie?
According to one study, the human brain only has a certain capacity to process information. And if you want to grab peak focus and engagement, seven words is the bullseye. However, anything within the five to nine range generally performs quite well.
Don’t get too caught up on making headlines five to seven words in length, but avoid extremes. Anything super short – like one to three words – probably isn’t enough. Likewise, anything that’s 15 to 20 words is going to miss the mark.
The worst mistake – and one that’s unfortunately quite common – is to focus the headline on your brand or product. (Intuitively, this seems like the very thing you should be doing. But realistically, it’s a huge misstep that’s difficult to recover from.)
When you write a headline that’s brand-focused, you’re basically making yourself the focal point. You’re like the kid who stands on the table at a high school party and screams, “Look at me!” People might look, but they’re rolling their eyes.
Headlines should always, always, always be focused on your target customer. Your product might solve their problems, but leave the product out of it. Focus on benefits instead of solutions.
The best brands don’t try to position themselves as the hero. Instead, they position the customer as a hero and offer to be a guide who points them to a solution that makes their problem go away and/or fulfills their underlying desire. (This solution just so happens to be the product.)
Listicles have emerged as a favorite style of copywriting in recent years. And though they can feel generic and repetitive, the truth is that they work. And the reason why is tied to the specificity of numbers.
Numbers are psychologically proven to generate a response in the brain. When the brain sees a digit amongst a sea of words, it has no choice but to slow down and process the number. It also establishes parameters and allows for easy classification. If you’re giving someone the “5 Reason Eating Red Meat is Good for Your Health,” it tells people exactly what to expect. They don’t have to go searching for the takeaways. They know there will be five – end of story.
Numbers are especially powerful when attached to a data point. Statistics and percentages are powerful on many levels – use them to your advantage.
Generic and boring words won’t get you very far. Your headline is the curb appeal. If it doesn’t pull people in on an emotional level and communicate tangible value, people aren’t going to read on.
Creative wording doesn’t mean lying or embellishing. It doesn’t mean being flowery and over-the-top. It does, however, require you to improve your word choice.
Don’t have the deepest vocabulary? Use an online thesaurus or a book like Words That Sell to get ideas for more impactful language. Sometimes upgrading a single word can make a major difference in the perception of your landing page headline.
The headline is so important that you should dedicate a specific amount of time to brainstorming options and creating different options. (As Ogilvy’s rule states, you should spend at least half the amount of time it takes you to write the accompanying copy on the headline.) However, don’t get so lost in headline writing that you forget about the rest of the PPC landing page.
A headline is only effective if it has proper alignment with the body copy. Never mislead a visitor or make someone search for relevance. The headline can evoke curiosity and intrigue, but it can’t deliberately lead someone astray. You might get people to spend time on the landing page, but they won’t convert.
Word choice, sentence structure, and grammar are only part of what it takes to write a good headline. Sometimes you have to get creative with how a headline looks to the eye. And whether you realize it or not, you have a number of powerful tools you can leverage to analyze competitors and get results. They include:
As you can see, there are countless ways to improve a Search engines headline without even changing a word of copy. Success is in the details!
Everyone wants to be original and flex their own creative muscles, but when it comes to writing headlines, your decision to leave the herd may actually hurt your ability to convert. This is one area of life where following the pack and mimicking what’s already been done helps.
According to one study, 200 of the best ads that produced significant sales and gained global recognition across a wide swath of industries were actually very similar to one another. In fact, 89 percent of these Google ads could be classified into one of six headline formulas.
It’s rare that you need to reinvent the wheel – simply installing the wheel correctly is enough to get you to where you need to be. Become a student of the game and build up your own library of effective formulas and examples to pull from. Never copy, but always mirror.
Now that we’ve thoroughly dissected some elements and tips for crafting superior landing page headlines, let’s take a look at a few copy-and-paste formulas and high-converting examples that you can use to improve your results.
Feel free to add these formulas to your own personal swipe file and/or experiment with a few of them on your next landing page project. As always, you’ll want to tweak and test until you find the best fit for your landing page.
Did you know that less than 25 percent of PPC ads produce any conversions? Yes, that’s right…more than 75 out of 100 PPC ad campaigns are able to convert clicks into customers. This means the majority of ad campaigns are a waste of time and money or your PPC agency is simply doing it wrong.
When your ad campaigns don’t work, it’s easy to blame the medium and assume that PPC ads or effective PPC landing page headlines don’t work. But if we’re being frank, it’s not that PPC doesn’t work – it’s that most agencies are doing it wrong.
At PPC.co, we work with small businesses and enterprise companies on a daily basis. And because we have such a large sample size and experienced track record working with a variety of brands in all industries, niches, and stages of growth, we know that PPC landing pages advertising works. We’ve also discovered that so much of the results depend on the post-click experience.
Want to learn more about how you can develop winning ad campaigns that meld compelling pre- and post-click experiences to generate results for your business? We’d love to fix your broken ad spend and help you boost the bottom line.
Contact PPC.co today and get a no-strings-attached audit and proposal for your next campaign! We have great incentives for those just starting out in PPC that may need some white label assistance!
We’ve all been there: sitting in front of the computer or scrolling along on your phone and seeing the one-millionth ad of the day. You can often ignore them but sometimes the ads jump out, not because they use bold fonts or bright colors but because you were just thinking about the very same product or service that’s being advertised via PPC.
As the consumer this can feel wild, like the device is inside your head, watching your every move and making note of your every thought. But as a business owner, you should know better.
This is the practice of retargeting ads and it’s a valuable one. No witchcraft of telepathy required.
When you’re paying to advertise your product or service, you want those ads to cut through all the noise and actually reach people who are interested in buying what you’re selling. That’s why you need retargeting.
First, let’s start with a typical series of events without retargeting.
A customer is looking for something similar to what your business provides. They enter some keywords into a search engine and end up on your website. Great news, right? This is a success of SEO and maybe even pay-per-click advertising. Not so quick.
The customer browses around the site, maybe even adds items to their cart or chats with the support, but ultimately leaves without making any purchases.
Without retargeting, this story ends there. So close to making a sale, yet still so far away. It’s frustrating and it can happen over and over again with piles of potential customers slipping through the cracks.
Here’s how the story can end differently, with a happy ending for everyone involved.
The same sequence of events takes place, but in this version, your business practices retargeting.
After the customer leaves your website, they are shown additional ads, often specifically referencing the items or pages they originally viewed on your site. You use the information you gleaned about them to show them just the right ad to make the conversion.
One of these ads catches their attention, so they click on it, come back to the website, and make the purchase, sign up for the email list, fill out a form, whatever the final desired action is. They’re happy, you’re happy; it’s all worked out and the credit goes to retargeting ads.
Although, if you want to tell people it’s all due to your superior business skills and product, we won’t argue.
The simple premise of retargeting is to show potential customers who have expressed some interest in your business highly relevant ads that convert them from potential customers to customers.
This can take a variety of forms so let’s look at some of them and compare.
Pixel marketing is the most common kind of retargeting. And no, it doesn’t mean the ads are blurry and pixelated.
Pixel-based retargeting works by putting a line of code (otherwise known as a pixel) on your website. The pixel then puts an anonymous browser cookie in each of the visitors’ browsers as they come to your website or landing page.
They then leave the site but the pixel allows your ad provider (e.g. Google Ads, Facebook retargeting) to start showing your specific ads to these visitors.
You’ll be able to glean lots of information about visitors to your website through this method and retarget them accordingly. Want to target a visitor who clicked on a specific product page but didn’t follow through to adding to the cart or checking out? You can do it with pixel retargeting.
Sometimes pixel retargeting can come in the form of serving very specific ads showing visitors the exact products they viewed on your site, a practice called dynamic retargeting. It can be beneficial in that potential customers are reminded of the exact thing they were interested in, but some may find it intrusive and disquieting.
List-based retargeting is a more traditional kind of retargeting where you show ads to existing customers or visitors who provided you with some level of personal information like an email address.
You can email these people directly or upload the list to your retargeting platform of choice and have the retargeting campaign address them according to what you already know. It’s a slightly less sophisticated technique but it can still be extremely effective.
The major con with list-based retargeting is that you won’t be able to go after customers who have only minimally engaged with your website, but you can achieve that through other methods.
On-platform retargeting is most used on social media platforms such as YouTube and Facebook. If you post a video on Facebook, you can choose to retarget specifically those who watched the majority of the video.
It’s a different way of gathering information on the potential customer’s interest in your business and can also work well.
Showing users things they’ve expressed an interest in is already how these sites work, so your ads will generally fit right in.
Going back to our little story from earlier, what if the customer targeted in the retargeted ad campaign sees the ads for the business they were interested in and decides they aren’t actually interested at all? Isn’t it all a big waste of time and money?
Simply put, no. And there are a few reasons for that.
Marketing and advertising are always going to be a numbers game. There may be lots of fish in the sea but you’re never going to catch them all, even the ones right near your boat.
What you can do is narrow the holes in the net you’re casting so fewer fish get away. But enough with the fish metaphors.
Let’s put it into hard numbers. If you liked math in school, this will be your favorite part.
Website visitors who have been retargeted with display ads are more likely to convert by a whopping 70%. That’s 7-0 percent. Not good enough for you?
How about the fact that retargeted ads have a click-through rate that is 10X higher than regular display ads?
What about the evidence that retargeting campaigns can produce crazy returns on investment, as was the case with one company, Watchfinder, which achieved a 1,300% ROI over six months?
Of course, every business will see different conversion levels with their retargeting campaigns, but the numbers show they can be incredibly effective. So effective, in fact, that you’d really be silly not to get in on the action.
But if you really want to increase the success of your remarketing campaign, follow these tips:
This may be the most important tip of them all, which is why we’ve put it at the top. Do you hear that? If you’re only going to pay attention to one of these, make it this one!
One of the worst things you can do is to bombard potential customers with too many ads. Customers have expressed frustration and annoyance regarding repetitive ads that seem to follow them around wherever they go online.
Don’t be the creepy business harassing would-be customers. It’s not a good look or a good strategy.
On the other side, use too few impressions and your ads may never breakthrough, even to the interested customers you are specifically going after. Show them enough to keep them thinking about your business but not so many you turn them off of it.
Essentially, you want just the right number of impressions. A Goldilocks amount, if you will. Not too many and not too few.
You may think that just because retargeting goes after customers who have already expressed an interest, that the ads don’t have to be as eye-catching the second (and third and …) time around.
Well, cast that thought from your mind. Lock it out and throw away the key.
Ad design will always be important. It may even be more important in retargeting.
You need to make sure the ads are recognizable and tie directly to your brand. Variety in ad type is also valuable here since customers can find the same ad over and over again much less appealing than a bunch of different ones.
This goes with tip #1 but it deserves its own shoutout. Don’t go after recent customers right after they’ve made a purchase.
If a customer is won over by your ads, decides to buy something, and then is immediately inundated with more ads, it will feel more like a punishment than a friendly suggestion.
An annoyed customer is not likely to become a repeat customer. And if you happen to make the critical error of serving them an ad for the very product they just purchased? Forget it.
You should be conscious of where each potential customer is in the sale funnel and make sure that your retargeting campaigns reflect that.
The value of the retargeting campaign compared to any ordinary ad campaign is that you already have additional information about the potential customers and their interest in your business.
Don’t waste that information by doing nothing with it. Create specific ads and different campaigns depending on what level of interaction the customers have engaged in and what product types they showed interest in.
As with any marketing campaign, a critical component is consistent monitoring and evaluation.
Tracking conversions, whichever conversion you’re aiming for, whether it’s sales, email signups, or views, is a great way to know how your retargeting campaign is going.
If something’s not working right, this is how you can find out and fix it. And if everything’s perfect, well, you’ll want to know that, too, so you can keep doing what works.
Find the right metrics that work for you and track them religiously.
As you may be able to see at this point, retargeting, while very beneficial, isn’t always the simplest strategy to implement. There are lots of different factors and best practices to stay on top of to get the process to pay off the way you hope.
If you want to be sure that you get the full rewards of a retargeting ad campaign, go to the professionals.
At PPC.co, we have a team of marketing experts that will help ensure your first-time visitors don’t stay one-time visitors. We do the heavy lifting on the retargeting front so the potential customers who are most likely to make a purchase are right there, ready to be wowed by your business.
Play your cards right and you’ll have swaths of new customers who keep coming back. That’s the potential for a crazy high return on investment.
Don’t leave money on the table by using a poor performing PPC marketing agency. Start using retargeting by engaging our PPC retargeting service.
Many users may not know the difference between the display URL in a Google Ad and the destination URL. For one, understanding the difference between the two is important for understanding how to use and optimize display URLs for search engines.
Optimizing display URLs is key to the success of your ad campaign, especially if your business is not that well known or does not have a large web footprint. It also helps google tie the ad to your business when your business does not use keywords that describe the type of business that it does.
For example, if you sell toasters, but your website’s URL is dave.com, obviously Google isn’t going to have any clue how to tie an ad for toasters to dave.com if you don’t optimize the display URL.
To be clear, the Display URL is what users see if they look at one of your ads. This is different from the destination URL, which is where the user will land if they click on the ad. A display URL isn’t an actual web address and so, does not have the same requirements or restraints placed on it as a clickable link.
To think of it literally, the display URL is the unique identifier tying that ad to the business that it is associated with. That’s why it is so important to optimize the URL to allow the Google to properly identify the ad and the business it is associated with.
The next question you’re probably going to ask is why this matters in terms of advertisements? It matters because it affects your ad score, high score ads mean better placement, cheaper prices, and other benefits as dictated by Google. A highly optimized display URL improves your score ranking and your overall ad campaigns success as a result.
Display URLs have some strict guidelines that have to be followed, unlike normal URLs. Learning how to optimize your display URL while staying in these guidelines will take some work.
Google only allows up to 35 characters in display URLs and for mobile WAP ads that limit is cut to 20 characters. That’s right, you read that correctly, characters, not words. This means careful selection of every letter is important when building your URL.
Additionally, the domain name of both the display URL and the destination URL has to match. That means that if the destination is taco.com, then the display URL must also have taco.com in it. This is very specific but it is done to tie the ad to the destination.
The destination URL does not have the same character limit mind you, just the display URL.
One thing that display URLs can do is show folders or subsections. If the character limit allows. This means that your URL could be taco.com/steaktaco. Prefixes for subdomains are also allowed.
Now that you know the rules that you must follow when building a display URL, you can figure out the best means to optimize the URL. We’ll break down the keys to optimizing your display URL so that it’s easy to digest.
We know you are limited on characters, but the display URL should contain at least one keyword that is also a target in the ad itself. Since the display URL isn’t a live link, you can use prefixes and folder names to reference keywords even though actual pages with those names won’t exist.
This allows you to bend the rules a bit and add keywords to improve PPC optimization.
If you’re an ecommerce business running PPC ads, then a display URL that includes the product in a shortened way may help optimize click-throughs and conversions.
You’ll also want to consider Google ad extensions along with how you choose and showcase your display URLs.
Another tip is to use Capital letters in filenames to improve search engine visibility. The domain name and prefix are always written in small caps, but you can capitalize the very first letter in a file name and it will be more visible in the Google.
35 characters isn’t a lot, but if your domain name is short, then use the remaining characters to create a files name that will tell users as much as they can about the product.
Here’s an example: “dave.com/lightweight2slicetoasters”. Now if you read the file name at the end of the domain name, you can see that the ad is for lightweight two-slice toasters. If that’s what you were looking for when you saw the ad, then you know exactly what you’re going to get. Examples aside, it’s important to give potential customers as many details as you can for your valuable ad space.
This also minimizes waste, as users who aren’t interested won’t click because they can see what they are getting beforehand. Remember that each click costs money, even if the person clicking doesn’t buy anything from you.
After you’ve performed all the different tactics to optimize your display URL, it’s a good idea to use Google analytics data to see how your ads are performing and see if there are any other changes that you can make, such as tweaking ad keywords or further improving display URLs. Every bit of data is important to help you rank as high as possible and make the most out of your ad campaigns.
Once you learn the rhythm of designing display URLs, you can improve future campaign success by tailoring the domain, keyword, and URL to each other to form a cohesive and search engine optimized ad structure.
Hopefully, this guide has taught you what you need to know about AdWords display URLs, their value, and how best to optimize them. Using the tips we’ve outlined here you can increase the ad rank of your ads and score more premium ad space and cut marketing costs.
All of these things mean better ad campaigns and marketing success for all of your ads. This will help drive more traffic to your business and best of all, it is more.
Need help with managing your PPC ad spend? We’re here for you! Contact us and start with a free PPC audit.
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PPC automation can be a great driving force behind any marketing campaign, provided you know how to use it properly. Several factors go into how well your automated bidding algorithms work and mismanagement can mean a completely wasted ad budget and a useless PPC ad campaign.
The first thing to think about is the fact that automated bidding algorithms are essentially learning machines. This means that you’re trusting that machine to do work for you that you will otherwise have to do yourself. By now you’re probably going “gee I already know that, why are you telling me this?”
We say this because oftentimes the automated machine is not allowed to function as it normally should to make the PPC ad campaign as effective as it could be. That’s why we’re going to go over some things that every marketer should know about Automated Bid Strategies and how to make them work properly for your PPC ad campaigns.
Yes, that’s right, budget constraints can negatively affect your automated bidding strategies Or algorithm. The way the program grows is by learning behavior and adjusting to match that behavior to get the best results possible based on ad data.
However, if your budget is such that you can only spend ad dollars on auctions that will result in clicks and your return needs to be exceptionally high, this will result in your automated bidding strategy algorithm only Automated bidding strategies/bid strategies on auctions very sparingly and may result in diminished traffic and diminished returns.
Instead, your automated bidding targets should be set based on realistic expectations of return on ad spend based on actual cost per ad data that you’ve used recently.
Relevant data helps the algorithm learn what it needs to do in a particular situation as opposed to setting target guidelines with no predefined data.
The algorithm must learn the patterns of data over time. Setting unrealistic goals on little to no data will only result in wasted spending or ad spend.
It’s important to remember that you are teaching the algorithm how to target the best auctions for display ad space on your behalf. To do this you should follow a few certain steps to get the best results.
Target strategies focus on hitting a certain ROAS or CPA and not on the bulk-buying of ad space. Because of this, how you manage these values in telling the algorithm what to do is crucial to having any success what so ever in your ad campaign
If this is your first time using an automated bidding strategy algorithm and you’re trying to target auctions accurately rather than forcefully, you should start by feeding the algorithm your CPA and ROAS data from about the last month or so.
It takes the algorithm a couple of weeks to get up to speed so you’ll want to avoid making any changes until the program has ended its initial learning phase.
When attempting to make adjustments to your ad targets, you should work in small increments. For instance, if your ROAS is 10x, don’t wait two weeks and immediately try to jump to a 15 or 20x number, move slowly from 10 to 11, wait a few weeks and then move again. This gives the algorithm time to learn and adjust.
Otherwise, you end up in the same situation as we stated before, the algorithm will likely seldom Automated bidding and result in diminished returns.
Lastly, allow your algorithm to observe other sets of data by setting it to observe other audiences. As we said, you’re teaching the algorithm, so the more data it has access to, the better it will perform.
For ad campaigns that run on a stringent budget, you can set your automated smart bidding algorithm to maximize the number of maximize conversions/maximize conversion value on a particular ad. While these strategies are indeed effective if your ad campaign is strapped for cash, they have some limitations that make them ineffective for certain types of ad campaigns.
For one, setting your automated smart bidding to maximize conversion is like telling it to charge into battle without considering anything but beating the enemy. What this means is that the algorithm will forego any other data other than maximize conversions, such as demographic data, customer preferences, or even automated bidding strategies adjustments.
It will also continue to bid and buy ad space so long as the budget allows until it hits the pre-defined limit.
This type of strategy also doesn’t care about cost per click targets. If you have an ad campaign with these targets set, this strategy will be wholly ineffective.
Just like with target-based strategies, maximize strategies require time to learn the strategies you want them to perform. Automated smart bidding algorithms aren’t designed to make quick and sudden changes and if you try to do so, you’ll end up with a non-functional algorithm that is constantly readjusting.
This rule applies doubly to marketers who are constantly seeking concrete proof of success and every time they don’t achieve it they want to switch and try something new. You’re more likely to achieve success with your algorithm if you allow it the time and space to grow properly. You may even find that a given strategy that you thought was underperforming, may do better than as time goes on.
Success is not guaranteed, but allowing the algorithm to work as it is meant to be better than constantly changing strategies and hoping something sticks.
Automated smart bidding algorithms are great for taking a lot of the procedure out of Smart bidding Strategies for ad space and can save you a lot of time and effort in your marketing strategy that would likely be better spent elsewhere.
The problem is, many marketers want instant gratification and maximum results. If you can manage to follow through with the advice we’ve outlined here though, you’ll find that an automated smart bidding algorithm is much more efficient and successful than you ever though.
In addition, many of today’s automated algorithms are strategically built so the house always wins.
Instead of immediately accepted all bid adjustments suggestions, it may be worthwhile to take the time and do it manually.
Remember, Google Ads are strategically designed to make Google money (and now they are using AI for PPC), not necessarily to always perform the best in every situation for every business.
Are you looking for PPC management services? You’ve come to the right place! Get in touch with us today!
Remarking and retargeting are useful components of Google Ads and a crucial part of any PPC marketing campaign, that is if you understand and use it correctly. Before we break down how best to use PPC remarketing campaigns, banner ads to increase the return rates of online advertising customers, we’ll explain exactly what it is, how it works, and ways to use it.
Marketers may know what remarketing campaigns is, but even experts may find they don’t know everything about it. This guide will help to plug those gaps and become the ultimate resource for people using PPC remarketing Campaigns.
Remarketing Campaigns is essentially targeting ads to existing customers based on customer data. The types and variety of ads will differ based on customer preferences, market data, and a number of other factors.
This type of marketing is highly effective at getting existing shoppers to return to a site once they have already visited. It works by showing them things they may be interested in. This can be sales, new products, add-ons to existing products and services, new content on the site, and other types of marketing material or promotions.
The purpose is to increase the rate of repeat customer traffic through highly specific targeted ads marketing.
The one thing to note about remarketing campaigns or strategies is that they rely on existing customer data to perform well. Remarketing compaigns is not a customer acquisition strategy so the distinction should be made. You can’t collect customer preference data on people who aren’t your customers yet right?
So basically, before you even create remarketing campaigns you need customers who are already interested in your site (which means past visitors), and who have at least visited your site before or past visitors). That’s step one, remember it.
The reason customer data is needed for remarketing Campaign(besides the fact that it targets customers’ interests) is that the primary way that remarketing data is collected is through everyone’s favorite internet snack food, cookies. In this case, we’re talking about specific tracking cookies that are stored on users’ browsers and then used to follow them around the web and show them remarketing ads, ok maybe it’s not that specific but you get a general idea.
This can be done with the click of a button in Google Ads, it’s a button labeled remarketing. It allows you to set the tracking cookie requirements based on several different factors, duration of stay, pages visited, etc.
Every time a customer visits your site, cookies are collected which store a variety of user data that is relevant to your marketing work. Part of that data allows you to target customers with ads so that they will be more likely to visit your site and shop again. This is essentially why it’s called PPC remarketing, you’re performing targeted marketing/targeted ads marketing to existing customers or interested parties, hence you’re remarketing to them.
This doesn’t always mean that you’re targeting people you’ve already converted, but people who may have visited your site and not yet converted. In a sense, you’re marketing to existing customers and potential customers who’ve shown interest enough to visit but haven’t actually made that purchase yet. If you think of it as shopping, they’ve clicked add to cart, but haven’t yet pressed that checkout button. You’re giving them that last little push to come back and checkout with their cart full of goodies (or whatever else it is you’re trying to get them to do).
Now that you know a bit about remarketing Campaign and how the data is gathered as well as what it’s used for, you can begin to formulate a remarketing Campaign strategy to get those customers and potential customers returning and converting, hopefully again and again. To facilitate easier understand of the strategizing process, we’ll break down the process into pieces that’ll be more digestible, even for the marketing novice (we realize some of you reading this may already have a great deal of marketing space, but we like to cover our bases, this is the ultimate guide after all).
Also called segmenting, this basically means dividing your potential remarketing audience into different groups or ad-target types. This should be fairly straightforward and based on the data acquired.
Segmenting your audience ensures you’re not targeting the wrong type of ads to the wrong people. You want your remarketing ad usage to be as highly targeted as possible with remarketing Campaign and dividing up your audience helps to facilitate that.
There are numerous types of ads and deciding which type of ads to run for your target audience will be based on the data you have available and what works best for that particular audience.
There are enough ad types to create an entirely separate section, so we’ll break down the ad types and their uses elsewhere. One thing to note about picking your ad types is that Google allows you to create lists based on your ad type preferences for the audience.
Additionally, you can filter data and sort targets based on many factors, this helps you to decide what types of ads may work best. After all, different types of people have different search habits, such as how prone they are to search on mobile, how likely they are to watch video ads, and other things.
As with anything in marketing, before you know what really works, you’ll have to test it first. In the case of PPC retargeting ads, you may have lots of customer data, but that doesn’t mean you can always account for individual taste.
That’s why it’s important to test your marketing efforts and allow the data to coalesce until you’re sure of what is and isn’t working. Like any other marketing strategy, pulling the plug too early on a campaign means wasted efforts, but by the same token, letting a bad campaign run too long is wasted money and effort as well.
Test your methods and figure out what works, what kinda works, and what doesn’t work at all.
Like every other ad you’ll ever run, search engine optimization is key. Once you have a good idea of what works, you can begin to optimize for search engines. This is pretty much the same process as regular ads, just more specified to your target audience.
This includes optimizing for conversions too. Sale ads, special features and other types of ads that show customers what they’re missing out on is a great example of ways to optimize conversion when remarketing.
Before we talk any more about Remarketing Campaigns ad types and getting your specific strategy together, let’s talk about narrowing down and filtering your audience so that you know you’re targeting the right people. No matter the strategy, if you’re targeting the wrong audience, it’s likely wasted effort.
Imagine folks wanting to see a comedy show arriving at a talk on timeshares, you’d instantly lose your audience and nobody would buy a timeshare.
You can honestly target an audience in any number of ways. You can eliminate targets on the same basis as well. But essentially you’ll want to break your groups of targets down into manageable groups.
Beyond the basic demographic targeting options, which serve to narrow down audience gender, age-range, and other factors, there are a number of other things to look out for when trying to decide who to target.
For instance, one strategy is to target customers who hover on particular product pages. You could assume they are looking for a particular style of product or looking to see which one is cheapest or has the fastest delivery, factors such as that.
Knowing these possibilities you can create an audience category and then select ads that will target their interest.
As we said earlier, there is an endless number of ways to target a potential audience. Think about what you’re trying to do, what customers you’re trying to increase, and target according to those metrics.
It’s just as important who you don’t target in some sense. If you already have a segment of your market that regular ads are working for, then you don’t want to waste time and money remarketing to them.
One last tip on audience targeting is to narrow things down as much as possible. Target particular customers for particular URLs and make that a separate list. Say you want an audience to target sneakers, you can select the audience and target the ads to get them to shop specifically on your sneaker product pages.
In many cases, the more precise the targeting, the better.
Once you have all of your data, or before if you prefer, all of the setup to create lists of audiences and to target them for tracking and data collection can be done from the admin tab of your Google Ads account.
From the admin tab, you can set audience definitions based on a wide array of factors. This lets you customize your target audience to a great degree and gives you control over data tracking.
You can then create lists of those audiences and name them whatever you choose or even sub-divide them even more so that you can keep track of them even better. You’ll need to agree to some terms and conditions and be an active Google Ads Remarketing user, but once the “paperwork” is complete you’ll have access to create lists and also to determine how long you’d like your tracking cookies to stay stored on a user’s computer. This helps you set the targets for short-term or long-term campaigns or for whatever duration you’d like.
You can even set the frequency at which any given user will be shown your ads. It’s a good idea to set reasonable limits on these as too many ads can turn users off entirely. Remember, the idea is to nudge them into conversion, not scream at them until they convert.
There are a number of remarketing campaigns options that Google Ads allows you to choose from. Rather than just list them for you, we’ll discuss the main ones and ways they can be used to target an audience.
You can think of this as baseline marketing. This feature shows ads to browsers as they search the web or use apps on Google display network/display ad network. These are the conventional ad type and are best targeted towards the “browsing” type of users. Those people that go from page to page and typically like to look at lots of different things.
This type of remarketing shows ads to users of products that they’ve looked at before. This is good for those users that “shop” a lot (perhaps on an ecommerce site) but leave the cart full without checking out with it. This works on window shoppers too, the ones that don’t add to the cart but like to view product pages.
This is targeted remarketing optimized for your mobile website visitors or mobile app. As we said at the beginning, all that data allows you to know what users are browsing on and how often. If you know that your audience is frequent mobile browsers, then this option will help you target them.
This is just what it sounds like. It targets audiences and shows them search ads as they search Google. This display ads in their search results. This type of marketing works best on those users that just need a subtle reminder of what you sell or do. Those users that are on the doorstep of converting and just need a nudge are good for these ads.
Just as it sounds, this shows video ads to users as part of the Google display ad/ads network or for users of Youtube. This is great if you know that users are constantly watching videos. A short impactful ad can grab attention and make people want to traffic your site again and hopefully convert.
The most specific of the marketing types, if you correspond with customers via email, you can upload these to your Google Ads account and it will serve up ads as long as customers are signed into Google services.
Now that you know all about the ad types and how to use them, the last thing to worry about is SEO. Just like any other Digital marketing campaign, you’ll want to optimize all the elements of these ads to maximize rank and conversion chance.
We’ll break it down into sections so that you understand the different optimization strategies to make your ad campaigns work best.
This sounds simple, but you want to make sure your ads will work to drive traffic and convert. This can be a long process as you test and retest to ensure accurate results but this is key to the whole campaign.
As we talked about, you can adjust your audience settings and frequency of ads on the fly. You should be routinely checking and testing these to ensure your target market is correct and that you have the ad density correct.
The wrong audience target can mean wasted ads. Too much ad saturation for users can make users less prone to revisit instead of more prone. Finding the balance is tricky but worth putting the time into to get it right.
This should be self-explanatory but you’re looking at three things in particular. ROI, CTR, and IS. That’s the return on investment, how much money you’re getting for every ad dollar spent, click-through rate, how many times customers follow through and click to your site, and impression share, basically how much recognition your ads are getting. One quick note on impression share, if this is too high, you’re likely upsetting some customers.
Just as tricky as with standard Digital marketing campaigns, making sure the page is relevant, the text is useful and the page is able to tell potential customers what they want to know about the product or service is key.
You should be used to optimizing your landing pages for keywords and user experience. The process here is the same, make sure the users are getting what they want out of the landing page and continuing on to convert.
There’s no magic formula for remarketing but the general rule of the thumb is to target customers who have the potential to revisit and convert. You’re not mass marketing to everybody who’s ever visited your site. Some of them can’t be converted and others will return on their own.
That’s why we said to make your audiences as specific as possible. This lets you target just the niches of customers that are useful to you and eliminates a lot of the non-contenders.
Our other tip is to stay focused on whatever it is you do. You might call it brand focus. You want to draw in people who’ve visited your site. They likely already know a bit about you, so stay on brand and on point. In this way remarketing and PPC can help to do nothing more than improve your brand online.
Lastly, accept what you can and let go of what you can’t. You won’t win every target audience, not everyone you remarket to will convert and some campaigns may have more success than others. Particularly during sales or the holidays, you may see more from your remarketing than during other periods. Accept it and limit your risk or change your strategy so that you don’t waste ad dollars. Once you find your own rhythm, you’ll likely be winning more conversions and spending less.
There you have it, our ultimate guide to PPC remarketing. Hopefully, it’s taught you everything you ever needed to know about run remarketing campaigns’ target selection and everything in between to make your campaign a success & up on Digital marketing.
Ok, so this is one of those questions where instead of giving you a straight yes or no answer, we’re going to go with, it’s complicated.
Whether or not you use automated bidding with your Google Ads is going to be determined by how much or little you do with your automated bidding program.
If you treat your automated bidding programs like some sort of set and forget cooking appliance, then you probably should avoid ever using it again with your Google Ads as it is likely doing you more harm than good. Whether or not you buy into a lot of lies and half-truths that are told about google’s automated bidding Strategies will determine your success with automated bidding Strategies and whether or not you should use them.
You may find that the truth of automated bidding Strategies is a bit more than you bargained for and decide not to use them. Then again, you may find that if you use them right, the benefit outweighs the work you have to put in.
If this all sounds confusing, don’t worry we’ll break it down into a digestible format so that you can make the right decision for you.
Before we dispel some of the lies and assumptions surrounding automated bidding strategies, we’ll break down how it works and explain some of the functions in case you’ve never used it and want a bit of a guide on how it works.
If you’re wondering whether you should use it with Google Ads or not, you may not be aware of what exactly automated bidding is and how it works.
Automated bidding is essentially a type of artificial intelligence program that uses user-defined parameters to bid on ad space within Google Ad auctions.
There are a large variety of ways that these programs can bid and the amount spent, frequency of bids, and many other factors can be customized and set so that it does all your ad bidding for you. Automation is a great way to save time and get your Google ads out there so that people will see them.
There are a few different strategies that you can set as well to tell the program how and when to bid on ad space that is up for auction. Depending on the parameters set, the A.I. may or may not bid if the auction does not meet the criteria.
This type of selective or smart bidding has its own set of benefits and drawbacks.
The automated bidding program works by the user setting parameters for it to work in, and by being fed data on relevant ad space, funding requirements, performance data, and other metrics. By using all of these metrics, the program picks what Google ads to bid on, how much to bid for ads and bids for Google ads based on everything it has accumulated until it runs out of applicable funds.
The most obvious benefit of this is the hands-off automation that it provides. It requires much less time to program the A.I. than it does to manually bid on ad space. The main drawback is that you have much less control over the situation.
Another benefit that isn’t as apparent is that if you’re a marketer and you’re looking to run multiple ad campaigns, automated bidding automated bidding strategies allows you to manage multiple campaigns without keeping tabs on each and every auction that comes up.
As you can see from what we’ve covered, automated bidding strategies does indeed have its uses and downsides. Now that you have an understanding of how they work, you can understand why the answer to the question of whether you should use them or not is quite complicated.
Besides PPC automation, marketers have begun to use automated bidding strategies to become competitive as well as to win more auctions in general. In a lot of cases, bidding can be difficult as the more competitive a space is, the more fierce the bidding.
Bidding too low or bidding on poorly chosen ad space can result in poor advertising returns. That is a large part of the reason why marketers and advertisers prefer an automated bidding program as they can be programmed to win inform future bids rather than bidding based on speculation or emotion.
The obvious downside to this is that they do not hold any regard for certain factors.
Certain bid strategies prioritize winning prime ad space over other factors such as customer preferences, demographic data, ROI, and other metrics. This can be useful in some cases, but also a detriment in others.
Other strategies prioritize ROI and conversion rate over winning as many bids as possible. This allows the automated program to carefully select the bids it places to try and maximize the potential return on investment or maximize the conversion rate.
While this is a great idea, in theory, it too has its drawbacks, particularly if it fails to win enough ad space for the campaign to be seen or craft it in a way that it doesn’t convert. Balancing these factors is part of the marketer’s job unless they are going for a certain approach.
From a practical standpoint, the ability to tell your automated bidding program just what to focus on can be seen as a major benefit.
As we will discuss later, these base principles aren’t all there is to it, unfortunately.
Now that we’ve covered much of the basics about automated bidding programs and how and why they’re used, we’re going to discuss some of the facts about automated bidding strategies that will help you determine whether or not to use them in your Google Ads.
When we say this, what we mean is, automated bidding can be set for a number of factors and can certainly bid on and win Google ads that will get you plenty of clicks, what they don’t guarantee is that those clicks will lead to sales.
Many marketers are under the misconception that once you put an automated bidding strategy in place, all you have to do is sit back and watch the sales roll in. This is not only untrue, but it is also highly ill-advised. Not all, but some marketers assume that as long as you tell the program what you want and give it a budget, and you don’t have to review or watch a thing, it does all the work for you.
What you should be doing is setting reasonable parameters for bids and then checking your metrics to see how the Google ads it buys are performing. Like with the example of clicks, you can be ad spend money hand over fist for ad space and get lots of clicks, but no maximize conversion. You can liken this to running a store with only window shoppers while you still pay employees, rent, and utilities. In these cases, you are paying for valuable ad space that is not driving business the way it should.
Not only should you review your ad purchases regularly, it actually benefits the A.I. of these programs. They thrive and learn off of the input. If you feed them data that something isn’t working, they learn from that over time and adjust their bidding algorithm to try and do better. This doesn’t mean it’ll always fix the problem though so you still have to watch your bids, but it will generally improve over time.
If worse comes to worst, change your strategy and keep trying. Knowledge is power…we think.
Many marketers are under the false assumption that automated bidding programs are a sort of plug-and-go situation where you feed the program the inputs you want and it will go to work immediately to win you great bids and premium ad space.
This is one of those times where the belief could not be further from the truth. The actual truth is that automated bidding programs take weeks to get up to speed. These are learning machines after all. They have an initial learning phase that takes into account all of the information they have been fed in order to get calibrated for automated bidding strategy on auctions.
The standard amount of time is roughly 2 weeks but can run longer depending on the amount of information, the strategy, and the budget. The good news about this factor is, you can essentially front-load as much information that is relevant to your ad campaign as possible to supercharge the learning of your program so that once the initial learning phase is complete, it will have a higher success rate.
This includes feeding it all your campaign data, strategy, budget, any passive audience viewing information as well as any relevant historical ad campaign data. All of this will help it learn. Many marketers do not realize that so much information can be put into the program and that it will improve performance.
A well-fed A.I. is always a good thing and with the right data, you can see excellent results. Just don’t expect it to happen overnight.
This is something that even popular brands and expert marketers get wrong all the time and have no idea why until they study up on it. Most people think that “smart bidding” is the same as automated bidding. This is one of those yes, but no, statements.
So, let us break it down for you. There are many different types of automated bidding strategy. Out of those many types, smart bidding strategies is one of them. The reason for the distinction is that marketers incorrectly assume that all automated bidding is smart bidding strategies. That is wrong. Smart bidding is considered a sub-group within all of the automated bidding types. Once you know this difference, you can use smart bidding more appropriately.
Smart bidding focuses on fixed conversion-related bidding tasks such as click targets, ROAS targets, maximize conversion rates, and cost per click. Using these you can develop specific bid strategies and very targeted bidding that can win you ad auctions with specific results.
This type of bidding has to be used with caution though as these types of bid strategies will usually tell the program to ignore other data such as cost per bid, user demographics, and other customer-oriented data.
If used properly and strategically, there are a lot of benefits and loads of profit to be made, just don’t go assuming that smart bidding is all there is or that automated bidding strategy is all smart bidding.
Just because you set an advertising budget and programmed your automated bidder doesn’t mean that everything goes as planned and you no longer have to account for individual bids.
Without the right parameters, your artificially intelligent friend can bid on very expensive ad space and quickly eat through your ad budget without you even noticing it. Within a few individual bids, you can go from a full balance to a zero balance for your ad budget.
If you see that your cost per click on some Google ads is too high, you can retarget and get better pricing or if you think you need the better ad space, increase your budget to cover the better ads. In either case, you should be sure to watch your ad spend or you’ll soon be out of budget and short of customers.
There’s plenty of customization that can be done with automated bidding programs that tell it only to bid on certain spots that have a guaranteed conversion rate or relative ROAS but using these bid strategies effectively means feeding in lots of data and letting the A.I. go through a learning phase each time you change strategies. This is a good idea if you’re trying to rebalance your marketing to achieve better results.
The important point to remember though is that if you focus on high ROAS or CPC values, your returns may not be as good if you can’t feed your bidding machine enough data to act properly. In that case, it may not bid enough to win needed ad space because it is being too selective.
Some folks are under the mistaken belief that you either MUST use automated bidding or never use it at all. The truth is, neither is correct. With the right preparation and work, automated bidding and AI can be great tools that can take a lot of the work and speculation out of bidding on ad space.
That being said, there are times when automated bidding just won’t work as well as doing things manually. Small budget campaigns, for instance, don’t typically fair as well. Additionally, overly difficult strategies don’t work as well without lots of time and input into the automated bidding system.
If you have the time to invest, automated bid strategies can be your best friend in marketing. If not, then you may be better off using the manual method and being your own judge. Don’t let skepticism sway you one way or another. Choose the option that works best for the situation you’re in. You may choose to automate some campaigns and not others, even ones running concurrently. The trick is finding what works.
That’s it. All the big secrets and lies about automated bid strategies you need to know to decide whether it’s right for your Google Ads campaign. Hopefully, we’ve given you all the info and tips you need to make the most educated decision possible for whatever it is you’re trying to accomplish.
If we can say one thing, don’t believe all the hype you read on either side and strive to find out the facts yourself.
As a business owner, you must know the importance of calculate cost/lead cost generation. It is a highly efficient way to generate new consumers, increase brand awareness and ultimately, increase your revenue.
Lead generation is one of the many ways of digital advertising/online advertising pricing model. There display advertising has been a steady growth in the amount of money spent by marketers on it, and this figure is expected to reach US$3.2 billion by late 2023.
Cost-per-lead (CPL) is a metric that businesses use to gauge their lead generation efficiency. It indicates how much a brand spends on its marketing efforts to attract a single lead.
However, not every lead has the potential to be a customer, and you have to qualify them to avoid wastage of time, marketing efforts, marketing team, and money.
Read ahead to see the importance of Cost per lead (CPL) and how you can calculate the amount you are willing and afford to ad spend on a customer.
It might seem more straightforward to choose a budget to ad spend on your quality leads instead of coming up with a strategy to select the best Cost per lead (CPL). While you can certainly do that, a target cost per lead (CPL) derived randomly will end up giving you unexpected results.
If you’re looking for tangible results, you don’t want to do that. It is essential to align the business goals you want to achieve with a target Cost per lead (CPL) as they differ from one to another, and a set percentage won’t be of any good. For instance, a profit-maximizing goal and doubling the annual revenue goal requires separate Cost per lead (CPL).
By being aware of your goals, you can decide how much you want to spend on them, according to their relevance and importance. It makes it easy to come up with various marketing strategies and carefully allot its budget.
The target Cost per lead (CPL) influences several marketing decisions, making it essential to choose it wisely and avoid wrong optimizations.
To calculate an optimal Cost per lead (CPL), you have to understand your businesses’ needs. Set the record straight with your goals and then proceed.
Of course, you want to target the right leads and spend money on getting beneficial outcomes, but before that, it is important to look at your marketing budget to check if the cost to acquire a customer falls in that range. To determine this cost, calculate a new customer’s average lifetime value.
Customer Lifetime Value predicts how much monetary benefit your new customer can provide your business with. While companies involving ecommerce don’t see customers returning, things get complicated if your business relies on local lead generation. Here customers can subscribe to services like Netflix or continually hire you for your services. Your CLV is based on all of these factors.
For instance, if a customer pays $19.99 every month for three years, that customer isn’t worth the same amount because that is just the money you get initially. In fact, they are actually worth $59.97, making it worthwhile to spend more than $19.99 to add a customer. Of course, you will lose some money initially, but the profits will be worth it as your relationship progresses.
Even though there are various methods to calculate the average CLV, here’s one of the easiest way to do so is:
Mean monthly revenue of a customer/churn rate = CLV
Let’s apply this lead formula to a practical example. Assume your company is a business widgets supplier with monthly delivery subscription models that other firms can also take advantage of.
In this case, use your company’s mean monthly revenue and divide that number by your monthly mean number of customers. For example, your monthly average revenue from a customer is $70 if 100 customers give $7,000 monthly.
To determine the churn rate, use the data for a specific month by subtracting the repeat customers from the whole number in the same month. Divide this value by the entire customer base of that month. For example, if you get 100 customers in a month and 90 are recurring customers, you get a churn rate of 0.1 or 10%.
Using these values, you can get the CLV with the help of the formula. For this example, the CLV is simply $700 ($70 / 0.1).
After figuring out your CLV, find out the actual profit margin. You have to calculate the cost to look after the new customer you get, for the entire time they’ll do business with you.
For instance, if the cost to take care of an existing customer’s requirements is $7 monthly for spending approximately ten months with you, it will provide fulfillment costs of $70.
Additionally, you have to consider more fixed costs of your business and divide those by the average monthly customer number. For instance, considering the same example, if rent, utilities, salaries, etc., amount to $5,000 monthly, that turns out to be $50 per customer monthly.
To calculate the mean profit per customer, a customer’s fixed and fulfillment costs can be used as in the equation below.
CLV – (Mean monthly costs of a customer / churn rate) = Profit of a customer
In this hypothetical example, the mean CLV was $700, and it costs $7/month to look after a customer for the business to proceed. For a customer, the monthly total average cost turns out to be $57. For a customer’s lifetime, this amounts to $570 ($57 / 0.1).
Subtract this value from the average CLV to get a profit of $130 ($700 – $570).
After calculating the amount, you can spend to convert a lead into a customer, work backward and figure out the cost you can bear to achieve this.
In an ideal world, we could consider the possibility of finding new customers out of all the leads, but those who have chased leads know how hard that can be. Use the following formula to calculate the amount you can spend on every new leads:
(Monthly sales closed / Monthly leads) * Profit of a customer = Maximum CPL
In the hypothetical scenario above, if you get 250 leads every month and close 50 out of those, you can spend $26 on every lead ($130 * (50 / 250)). If you spend more, you’ll lose money on each customer.
In addition, running and tracking metrics on a remarketing campaign means bounced traffic may not yet be a complete loss to you.
Even though you know your budget for a customer, it doesn’t solve the mystery of how much your target cost per Lead (CPL) should be, which ultimately comes down to your business goals.
Understand what your ultimate goal is. Is it to make tremendous amounts of money or reel in potential investors by showing you can get customers? The target cost per lead (CPL) for both cases will be different because you should be prepared to have some loss initially in the former case so you can build a solid customer base. Here, you will have a profit margin that is lower than the target CPL.
Of course, this is not a recommended business practice, but it is a clear indication of the importance of using the optimal Cost per lead (CPL) according to your goals.
Now that we have figured out how much you can and are willing to spend on your target cost-per-lead, let’s get to an essential part of this process: all the customers are not worth the exact cost.
Using the average CLV to choose a target Cost per lead (CPL) is a great approach, but what happens when you find more valuable customers to your brand? In this case, you have to assess what the right Cost per lead (CPL) will be according to the different customer types.
Let’s look at the ACME Widgets case because they sell the best widgets, and their average CLV is a whopping $24,000!
If you use the above hypothetical scenario calculations with the $24,000 mean LTV, a high acquisition cost per lead will be affordable for you.
However, it helps to know what types of buyers you have. In the case of ACME, there are three critical types of buyer personas, including Widgets Classic, Widgets Pro, and Widgets Infinity, with average LTVs of $1,750, $72,000, and $1.59 million, respectively.
These buyers with different LTVs enable you to spend differently on them. You can spend much more on Widgets Infinity leads than Widgets Classic on any day.
Not only this, your entire marketing campaigns/ad campaign varies with the different types, which you work on when you decide the optimal Cost per lead (CPL).
Compartmentalizing leads makes things simpler and enables you to spend wisely than choose some strict acquisition cost. For instance, Classic, Pro, and Infinity’s acquisition costs are $1k, $12k, and $202k, respectively.
These different buyer personas help you understand the amount needed in turning a lead into a customer. It will allow you to be more strategic in your approach towards the right Cost per lead (CPL).
For instance, an Infinity customer may require a target Cost per lead (CPL) Compaigns that is 80 times more than that of a Classic customer, but the higher cost shouldn’t budge you too much as Infinity would be a lot more profitable in the long-term.
If ACME Widgets would’ve stuck to an average figure to spend on every new lead, they probably would’ve closed most of the marketing channels and google ads that got them Infinity leads which would be detrimental to their business. Marketing channels are the most important thing!
For effective marketing campaigns that include a lead generation strategy, you have to invest time, cost-effectiveness, money, and effort to get valuable results.
Picking the right target cost-per-lead requires accurate thought and calculations so you can focus on the customers appropriately and optimize the right aspects of your paid marketing plan. This is particularly true if you’re manually doing the work and not automating your bidding on keywords in PPC. One of the most important things to recognize in this entire process is your business goals to identify the optimal Cost per lead (CPL) that your marketing campaigns/lead generation campaigns requires. Additionally, you have to consider your customer base to make the right decision.
Know the search engine optimization leads you want to focus on because not all of them are the same. Once you have this idea, it’ll be easy for you to make an informed decision rather than picking random figures and wasting your time and money!
Engage our PPC management services today and find out how we can help you dial-in your cost-per-lead!
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Understanding your conversion rate will help you assess the overall success of your marketing efforts. Conversion rate optimization is the process of improving the rate at which potential customers complete the objective that you want them to. It could be subscribing to your newsletter, making a purchase, donating to a charity, any action that you want a visitor to your site to complete.
Optimizing your conversion rate is not something that is easily done or something that can be done once or twice. That is why it is best to find a CRO service that can help you with the process every time you need them. In this post, we’ll explain the important points about your conversion rate as well as how to find the best conversion rate optimization service for your needs.
Most marketers are aware of what a conversion rate is, but may not have a tight grasp on just how much it can impact business performance, the cost of customer acquisition, and other aspects that are difficult to gauge by just looking at an ad campaign’s results.
Having a surface-level understanding of conversion rates is fine if you just want to plod along in your marketing, but if you’re shooting for real success, then knowing more about how your conversion rate impacts your business will help greatly when it’s time to find an optimization service.
That’s the first mistake a marketer is likely to make, if people aren’t converting, there must be something wrong with the ad campaign or the way you’re marketing the business.
While the type of ads you run, their placement, and frequency all matter in terms of people seeing the ads and knowing about your business, there’s a lot more to your conversion rate than that.
A conversion rate optimization service will have the tools to analyze all the aspects of your business to pinpoint key issues affecting your conversion.
We’ll break down some of the other issues that affect conversion so that you know more about what to look for.
As we said, there’s more than one reason why your conversions may be underperforming. Part of the process of converting is making it easy for the process to happen.
Sure, the first step in conversion is getting them to your site, but whether or not they follow through with what you want them to do is due in large part to how easy it is to get around your site and complete whatever process you have for them is.
Poor website design can mean a number of things. The first thing to consider is: Is your website optimized for the device they’re using? This plays a lot into SEO in general but the user experience is crucial to conversion.
A good CRO service will test your site fully and understand where potential leads are being turned off. The list of things that the best Conversion Rate Optimization Service will explore and test is nearly limitless.
One thing to note is that the majority of traffic now comes from users on their mobile devices. If your site isn’t optimized for mobile, you may be driving away a good portion of your traffic before they even attempt to convert.
Factors like image size, loading times, navigation, and ease of access all affect mobile optimization.
The CRO Service you choose will know best practices for optimizing for mobile so that traffic from mobile devices has an easy time accessing your site.
Another factor that often goes overlooked once a user actually clicks on an ad is the landing page. User experience begins at this point. Sure the ad drew them in, but the landing page is what keeps them interested in what you have to say, sell, or do.
The best conversion rate optimization services will test multiple variables to see what works and doesn’t on a given page, changing text and other elements around to see what converts more.
Whether or not you’re using dynamic landing pages, optimizing the page to convert is not the same as optimizing specifically for SEO. The most well-designed pages may not convert well due to certain elements. It’s important to have a conversion rate optimization service audit your landing pages to see what is and isn’t working.
You’ll want to have your CRO service on standby each time you change out ad campaigns and landing pages. Successful businesses maintain regular audits to ensure their conversion rates remain high.
As ad campaigns change and new content is added, you should be routinely checking to see if your conversion rate is up to snuff. That’s why doing it yourself would be time-consuming and extremely costly.
The best CRO services will offer web analytics to tell you how your site is performing and how to improve SERP ranking to drive traffic. Traffic volume helps with possible conversion and combined with conversion optimization will lead to much better customer acquisition rates and lower costs.
eCommerce sites can have a particularly tough time drawing in conversions if their site isn’t optimized for easy use. Having a poorly organized site, difficult to navigate menus, gaudy graphics and images, and other problems can severely affect your conversion rate.
This is not only damaging for an eCommerce site, it can literally end your business by having you spend exorbitant amounts on ads only for potential customers to window shop or get disgusted and leave.
Imagine for a minute having a brick-and-mortar store that pays its employees all day to have no one come in and actually buys anything, this is essentially what happens with the marketing budget of an eCommerce site that doesn’t convert.
Just like with other sites, the best CRO service can pinpoint your weaknesses and devise ways to keep customers on the page and shopping. They can test all the images, graphics, product listings, payment setup, and more to determine what works and what doesn’t.
Now that we’ve finished diving into all the conversion rate problems with your site, we can delve into how a conversion rate optimization service can save your advertising campaign and how they can multiply those ad dollars through higher customer acquisition rates and lower costs.
Just like with your website, many factors can affect your conversion rate when it comes to your ad campaign. Figuring out just what the problem is from raw data can be a frustrating mess, even for the best marketing consultant. That’s why you need someone with the tools and the strategies to figure out the problem and propose workable solutions to help you fix it.
Your CRO service should know the ins and outs of all the different types of campaigns to help you figure out whether your ads just need some work, or it’s time to reevaluate your entire strategy.
We’ll break down some of the elements so that you understand what your CRO service should be looking at and how it helps your business.
Whether you’re using automation or AI to buy ad space or you’re doing it yourself, the targeting strategies you use can affect your conversion rates. Having too high of an expected ROAS or CTR can make your ad spending ineffective at best and extremely costly at worst.
Expecting a 20x multiplier on every ad dollar spent when you don’t have the market share to get it will quickly see you throwing your marketing money away. The same is true for an absurdly high click-thru rate.
Another thing to consider in regard to targeting is the audience you are targeting. Ad space targeting is one consideration, but whom you go after is another. Web analytics helps you determine the demographics of your likely customer and can help you shift your market focus to perform better in terms of conversion.
An effective CRO service will have the means to address your targeting strategies on both fronts and help you reevaluate and retarget as needed. This is something that can change from campaign to campaign, so you’ll want your CRO service to perform an audit every so often to ensure conversion stays up.
There are many types of advertising on the web, but paid search marketing is the most widely used and recognized. Knowing how best to utilize this method and getting the right conversion can be difficult even for an experienced marketer.
Paid search marketing is the optimal way to market your product or service as users will have already gotten some idea of what they want when they see your ad in the SERP. The problem with these is often lack of oversight.
Setting up a PPC campaign that relies on paid search marketing and not optimizing it, or optimizing PPC once and leaving it will result in lost potential. Managing your paid search marketing on a regular basis requires regular audits and changes, often weekly.
This ensures that your conversion rates are always as high as they could be. The best CRO service will be able to manage your paid search marketing and keep it up to date and converting over the long term.
The best CRO services will actually actively monitor your paid search campaign and make changes as needed rather than waiting until your conversion drops and your money is wasted. Investing in the right CRO service can save your ad dollars and make you money.
There’s a lot of potential conversions from social media marketing campaigns. Ads that run on sites like Facebook can reach many more potential leads than other methods and as such can be a great source of revenue for businesses
The problem is that managing social media ad campaigns can be complex. For one, your targeting strategy for your specific market has to be tailored in the right way to reach the 1 billion users on the platform.
This means understanding how the platform integrates ads and shows them to users based on key metrics. Even an experienced marketer would have trouble analyzing all of that data alone. That’s where a conversion rate optimization service has the ability to help you manage your campaign. The best ones will have tools and software to analyze your ad metrics and target your specific audience better so that more of the right kinds of leads see your ads.
LinkedIn is a resource that is often mismanaged due to the sheer time it takes to target and market effectively. Generating leads on LinkedIn can be time-consuming, to say the least, and even a team of marketers doesn’t have all the hands necessary to manage posting, messaging, follow-ups, and lead generation.
The problem with LinkedIn ads management for many marketers is not the volume of potential targets, but the caliber. Much of the marketing done on LinkedIn is direct to business executives and professionals. B2B marketing is very much message based. How you would talk to the average consumer is not the same way you would speak directly to a business.
Messaging is much more key in this space than on other platforms. The added reach of being able to reach other businesses directly is worth the effort if it matches your market space, but the proper help is needed to do it right.
The best conversion rate optimization services have tools and automation to help you market effectively and convert on LinkedIn without hours of cold leads and wasted effort. The right CRO service will help you identify and communicate with leads that will actually close rather than typical mass marketing efforts.
The best way to gather all the information and metrics to see how your advertising is doing is by auditing your Google Ads account. The sheer volume of data can be a bit much to sift through, from your projected budget waste to your mobile strategy, CTR, and other factors.
The best way to handle an audit of your Google Ads account is by relying on an experienced CRO service. The best ones will look over every metric of your account and work to optimize the performance of the whole thing. Ideally, this is the place you start if you plan on overhauling your marketing efforts with a CRO service.
The best CRO services will perform a full audit of your Google Ads account and work forwards to develop a marketing strategy. Beginning your conversion rate optimization with a Google Ads audit can help to prioritize the areas that need the most attention.
These are most of the key areas of marketing that can benefit from a CRO service as well as what to look for when trying to find the best CRO service for you. If even one of these areas of your marketing strategy needs attention, consult a conversion rate optimization service to make sure you capitalize on all the business that could be coming your way.
Managing PPC campaigns or multiple ad campaigns across different skews can be time-consuming, frustrating, and costly. That’s why paying a PPC management agency is a good idea. Overpaying is not, however.
Determining what you should pay and the type of agency or services you want will require many different considerations about your business, your willingness to spend on PPC advertising, and how much effort you want to have to put in yourself.
Most PPC agencies have different pricing model’s based on different needs and the scale of pricing can vary wildly, it’s only one of the reasons clients have issues with their PPC agency. The upside is that a good agency can get you much more of an ROI than a typical marketer is capable of.
It’s a given that you’ll have to spend money on advertising in order to draw in customers, but much of that money can be wasted with ineffective PPC campaigns. The right PPC management will keep your Google ads fresh, well-targeted, and ever-evolving to consistently engage your market.
The core of figuring out how much to pay will be determined by the type of strategy that works for you and how much you can afford to spend in return for managing your ad campaign.
There are three standard pricing model’s that each work differently and are best suited for different types of businesses as well as additional fees and services that you may want to consider.
We’ll detail each model and then discuss the optimal situation where that pricing model would work to give you an idea of what’s best for your business and campaign strategy.
The way these models of pricing work, is that companies pay an agency a set percentage of whatever their base ad spending is. The company then manages the ad campaigns based on regular ad spend percentages.
In many cases, the more campaigns the agency manages, the lower the percent paid gets. This means by volume the agency makes more money but the business pays less. This is not the case for every agency but is standard practice for many of them.
This is generally the most common pricing model used and does not include additional fees and services provided by the agency. One caveat that comes with these pricing model’s is that they typically require a minimum amount of ad spend to operate regardless of the overall budget.
The percentage is also set by the agency and once locked in, can be difficult to renegotiate, especially mid-campaign. This means that fees are locked for a period of time regardless of return or tracked performance unless otherwise stipulated. Knowing the conditional stipulations that apply to your PPC management contract will help to avoid unnecessary costs.
These types of pricing contracts are best reserved for big businesses with big PPC advertising or ppc ads budgets. This is mainly due to the minimum required spending that accompanies these pricing plans.
Small to medium-sized businesses may not be able to afford the price point of these plans and the required minimums.
Additionally, larger businesses that run more campaigns or that have large ad portfolios will benefit more from the decreased fees associated with higher workloads on these price plans.
Larger businesses also have the ability to absorb the cost over the term of a contract if the ROI is not as high as it may have been forecast. Businesses with minimal budgets or that cannot absorb extra costs would not be well suited to these models due to the lack of control overpricing.
This is a fixed fee model that is determined by the associated costs and scope of managing a client’s static ad campaign. The fees and assessments for managing a business’s ad campaigns are all built into one payment.
This provides a set range of PPC management services for static campaigns and covers all associated monthly fees. This provides businesses with a set cost for a set run of ad campaigns.
The one typical downside to this type of payment model is that it is not easily modified and the scope of services may be less than other pricing models. Performance is also not guaranteed. The PPC management fee’s are paid regardless of how the Google ads campaign perform unless otherwise stipulated in the contract.
This type of setup can be a double-edged sword for businesses as the simplistic structure and flat fees are beneficial, but the range of services and performance may be limited. It’s best to discuss exact details before deciding on this type of payment model to ensure the services are what you need.
Though this type of pricing model is not as common as the percentage of ads spend model, it can be beneficial for businesses that run a set of standard, static ad campaigns on a regular basis and simply need them managed in some capacity.
Smaller businesses that prefer to pay a flat fee may also choose this model over others so that they have more control over the exact price they pay. The simplified pricing and limited PPC management services also serve smaller less complex ad campaigns better.
Larger businesses or businesses that run constantly changing ad campaigns, seasonal Google ads, and other promotions would not benefit from this type of pricing. The fee structure is based on static ad campaign costs and the PPC management and oversight level is less than that of other plans.
This means essentially that complex ad campaigns will not receive the PPC management and attention to detail that they need to capitalize on their potential and will therefore have diminished ROI. Even if the cost is lower, in these cases the loss of potential revenue may cost even more. It’s like buying a cheaper product to save money and then having it break two days later.
These models are much less prevalent than the previous two and are tailored to less traditional campaigns that rely on leads generation to close sales. In general, this model is used for campaigns such as e-mail marketing, cold calling, B2B sales marketing, and other types of direct sell campaigns.
Agencies typically manage these campaigns and collect a fee-based either on overall performance or per lead that closes in a sale. Though the niche for these types of campaigns is smaller, the costs associated are also much more mitigated than other options.
This option works exceedingly well for eCommerce, direct sales, and referral models.
As we’ve discussed, this model is rarer than others due to the niche nature of the campaigns that use it. However, businesses that market directly or use conventional sales tactics can make great use of this as a leads-generation service to drum up sales.
The basic idea is that you only pay when they bring you a client. This makes the cost relative to client acquisition a worthy exchange in most cases. Linkedin campaigns, B2B campaigns, and direct-to-consumer sales would benefit greatly from this model.
Traditional marketing tactics, ad campaigns, and site-driven sales would not benefit from this model as the overall benefit would be lower compared to the cost per customer.
The plans we’ve listed are the top 3 that are most common, agencies may include other plan options as well as PPC management fee.
Typically, PPC management services fees are flat, static, and applied on top of standard pricing plan rates. The benefit of agencies that offer these fees is that the level of service is usually higher. In particular, services offer more control over ad campaigns, including automatically rotating or updating ads, managing dynamic ad campaigns, updating copy and other elements, and monitoring performance.
The fees for these services aren’t cheap, typically ranging from $500 to $5000, but the benefits are great for businesses with large campaigns who can afford the added cost and want more precise control of their PPC campaigns.
Before you decide on a plan, having a full understanding of your needs will help you determine what you need and what you should pay in terms of required services, changes, and other issues. It’s not enough to say “well, I can afford this much, so that’s what I’ll pay.”
First of all, take a look at your business’s PPC advertising or ppc adsstructure. Look at your base performance, decide what you want to improve. If you don’t have a dedicated PPC advertising/ppc ads program or budget, try to get an idea of what you want so that you don’t go into negotiating with an agency blind.
This is why larger businesses can afford to pay large premiums, they already have the ad budget and the return on ad spend usually covers any costs associated with using an agency.
Once you have a budget in mind, you can begin to decide on what plan would work best. This includes considering whether you want to pay for additional PPC management services.
The fees on percent ad spend plans are fairly standard and don’t leave much room for negotiation, but performance-based models and flat fee structures usually leave room for negotiation in terms of service and price. The larger and more complex your ad campaigns, the more you’ll spend overall, but you can also expect a higher ROI in these cases, with a good agency.
Before you sign the contract, make sure you have a PPC audit performed and go over any and all particulars so that you know where you stand. Having stipulations in your contract that cover you in case of downturns in business, poorly performing Google ads, or dynamic ad campaigns will allow you more control over your campaigns and protect you from the unexpected.
To help you figure out how much you’ll be spending, we’ll break down some of the standard industry fee structures.
Estimating is key to success in Google Ads.
Startup Fees are essentially assessment fees that are paid at the start of the contract. These are usually paid regardless of whether you start a long-term contract or are month to month. They can range from a couple of hundred dollars to several thousand depending on the agency and the scope of the PPC management services needed.
You’re paying these fees up-front for the agency to put together a plan for your ad campaigns and the PPC management services requirements. What you get for these fees, however, depends on the agency, so don’t expect a guaranteed level of service just because the startup fees are higher.
Contracts typically come in three types when you sign with an agency. Depending on your situation or budget, choosing one type over another may have more benefits.
Some agencies offer month-to-month contracts that allow you to change or alter services on a monthly base or quit the contract after the next 30 day period if you so desire. If you’re uncertain about your need or want to test out the agency before committing to a long-term contract this is a good option.
Though rare, some agencies offer a no-contract option. This allows you to end service at any time. Fees may be applied, but this may be a good option if you face financial difficulties or find that the service you are using isn’t working out. Those who don’t like commitment may prefer this option as well.
The standard option for most agencies is a term contract. These typically range from 3 to 12 months. These contracts can include performance minimums and expected services as well as all minimums and fees associated with payment. Payment is typically made on a monthly basis and can include the contract fee as well as PPC management fee’s.
There are three components to PPC management agency fees: Monthly click budget minimums, the standard monthly base fee, and the percentage of ad spend fee.
The first component and one that you should be aware of before signing is the monthly click budget minimums. These are the minimum ad spend budgets that an agency will work with. This is especially important if the agency takes a percentage of ad spend as part of their fee. If you don’t meet these minimums, you may need to change agencies or renegotiate the terms of your contract. This can determine a lot of the expense. Smaller businesses with tighter ad budgets may want to shy away from agencies with high minimums.
The second component is the base fee. This can be structured in a number of ways, but the base fee can be considered the minimum you will pay the agency for their work each month. Some agencies charge this as a flat rate or have flat-rate plans that don’t add additional charges.
Some require a base fee, plus hourly expenses based on workload. Others have a base fee based on keyword count, tiered fee structures, or fees associated with each service, as an a la carte service.
The normal practice is to charge a base fee, plus a percentage of either ad spend, or a percentage of the total PPC advertising budget, both of which can become quite hefty and can range from a low of 15% and a high of 50% of ad spend.
You should assess your financial health and your overall marketing budget when deciding on the type of payment structure and agency to choose.
Understanding the benefits and costs of a PPC marketing agency allows you to make more educated decisions on what to pay. What that number is for you will be dependent on a lot of factors.
The best answer we can give you is to do a hard inventory of your business’s finances and marketing budget and determine what you can afford to spend, even if things don’t go your way.
In general, you can expect a great return on your investment, and using a PPC management agency is a fantastic resource, but you shouldn’t over-leverage your advertising budget in case your conversion rate drops or your business suffers a downturn.
The rule is: pay what you can afford for the services you need most. Even a big business needs to be smart about where it puts ad dollars in order to maximize profits. Paying for things you don’t need is never a good idea.
Hopefully, this post has given you everything you need to know about PPC management agencies, how they work, their fees, and what you can expect to spend.
If you’re thinking of hiring a PPC agency or firing your existing PPC agency, get in touch!
Now you’ll have a better idea of what it’ll cost you and what you should and shouldn’t pay the agency you choose.
Amazon is a massive platform that reaches literally billions of users. It can be one of the best ways to expand your reach to acquire more customers and more importantly to improve your brand recognition.
Unfortunately, there are costs associated with selling on Amazon, and depending on who you are, what you’re selling, in what volume, and most importantly, how much you’re making on that sale, will determine whether you can afford to sell on Amazon.
Amazon works for both large and small businesses, but the costs associated may be more than the smaller sellers can afford depending on profit margin. Before you decide whether it is worth it to sell on Amazon, we’ll break down how the whole process works and what you can expect to pay so that you have a better idea of what you’re getting into.
We’ll also outline some of the benefits of using Amazon paid ads, besides the massive marketplace. One thing to note is that Amazon offers a number of services beyond just a platform for selling. Most sellers don’t realize at first, that Amazon offers resources for order fulfillment, advertising, affiliate sales linking, and other options. All of these features do increase the overall cost though, so we’ll dive into the benefits of each so that you understand what all you do and don’t need from Amazon before you ever start selling.
The actual setup process for becoming a seller on Amazon is fairly easy. Amazon will actually walk you through the process by making a few decisions and then setting up your seller account.
Before you begin that process though, the key thing is to understand your finances, what you’re looking to do and the scale you’re trying to sell at. Amazon actually offers a marketing agency program to help sellers get to market and offer their goods, but this means additional fees and charges and more work when trying to get ready to sell.
If you’re not going this route and have your own marketing agency, or are doing your marketing yourself, then you would just sign up for a seller account. There are two business models that most sellers use.
Third-Party Seller: This is a person who sells goods that another person makes. This means you rely on the supply you are given by the third party and sell the goods accordingly.
Brand Owner: You make and sell your own goods. This puts you in charge of the supply and sale process. You sell exactly what you are able to produce.
When setting up an account, you should consider whether you want to do one or the other, though some businesses do handle both ends of the process, selling their own goods as well as those provided by third-party suppliers.
Once you know what you want to do in terms of the types of selling you want to handle. Go to seller.amazon.com to register your account. Note that you should already have a standard Amazon account before you begin the process. You’ll also need several pieces of information to complete the actual sign-up process.
We’ll go ahead and bullet point the information you should have for clarity.
All of the information you have to provide is fairly standard for setting up any business type of account, so you shouldn’t have any issues with actually opening your seller account.
When you complete the process, you are given access to a platform called Amazon Seller Central. For informational purposes, we’ll break down Amazon Seller Central into its core components and explain what it does for sellers.
Amazon Seller Central is essentially your eCommerce hub for selling on Amazon. It allows you to manage all aspects of the selling process. They even have tutorials on how to sell on Amazon and a fees calculator to help you see what you’ll be paying for selling your products.
The main benefit of the platform is that you can set up your sales pages, adjust product listings, descriptions, rules, prices, and anything else related to the actual products you sell. It also assists with order processing. From here you can add and edit products as you like, adjust, improve, or remove listings and keep track of all your orders.
Additionally, there are brand services. To access these services, you have to be a registered brand on Amazon. To do this, you must apply to the Amazon Brand Registry, which requires more paperwork.
What you’ll need:
This can be a time-consuming process, even if you have all your paperwork together. Amazon has a brand approval process that can take between 1 and 30 days to complete.
Why is this important? Recognized brands get a number of advantages. They get customized product pages with their brand logos attached, higher brand recognition through the seller platform, and a branded storefront. This level of recognition is invaluable to growing both your sales and your web presence. It guarantees that your brand name and logo will be seen by more people as they browse and buy products on Amazon.
Setting up your Amazon Seller Central can be done manually or you can pay for a service through Amazon to have it done for you.
The last official step before you begin selling is the creation of your actual store on Amazon. This is fairly straightforward and is done through templates. Once you select your brand name and click create store, you’ll be directed to add your brand name and logo and select a pre-built template for your store.
There are a few different options, but select the one that presents your products in the way you want them seen and displays your brand in a way that is visible and identifiable. This comes down to personal taste but is an important part of the store setup process.
From there you move on to the inventory setup process where you can add products to your store. This can be done one at a time or all at once by uploading the products to your store. You can follow the instructions through Amazon’s helpful product upload guide to get the gist of how to do it.
After you have all your product pages set up and you’re happy with everything, the last step before you launch the store so that it goes live is to submit it to Amazon for approval, which takes 72 hours. As you can see, beyond the cost, which we’ll discuss further in a moment, there is a significant type lapse between account creation and beginning the selling process.
Selling on Amazon is not nearly as simple as it may seem at first glance. To sum up the entire process, you need to think about the type of seller you want to be, gather all the important documents, create your seller account, get your brand name approved (if applicable), set up your store, and get it approved.
Now that we’ve broken down the process of selling on Amazon, we’ll do a deep dive into the actual cost of selling on Amazon. This can get fairly complicated so we’ll try to break the fees down in a way that lets you figure out what you have to pay, what you may want to pay for, and what you have no use for.
Beyond just the storefront, there is a whole plethora of options and services that Amazon provides to sellers. The trouble is that each of these services has additional fees associated with them. These costs can really add up, especially if you go in for more than what you need.
Before we begin, one quick thing to note is that the costs we are quoting are at the time of publishing and are subject to change. Use these costs as a guideline for what you can expect to pay.
There are two seller subscription plans and each has its own costs and features.
The individual plan is free to set up and the fee is a flat $.99 per item, at the point the item sells. You can create new product pages with an individual account, but you won’t have access to many of the customized reporting options and inventory management features.
The shipping fees are standardized and set by Amazon instead of the seller. You will also not have access to gift cards and promotional sales options. The individual account is also a single account that belongs only to the account holder, permissions to alter the product pages and other services cannot be given to other users.
We can’t say whether this type of account will be right for you, but for individuals that do limited numbers of sales and just want a marketplace to host their products, this is a good option to start with. If sales volume increases or you need access to other features, you can upgrade. Amazon also offers temporary suspension of sales for any reason to either plan holder. This is useful if you run out of stock or suffer a sudden emergency.
The professional plan comes with a flat fee of $39.99 per month. There is no per-product fee directly associated with the plan (though other fees may apply depending on services). You are also given access to all of the product management and reporting features that are offered through a seller account, unlike with an individual account.
One major difference is that with a professional plan, the seller is able to set the shipping rates instead of Amazon. Sellers are also given access to promotional offers, gift cards, and featured listings on products. You are also able to calculate U.S. sales and use taxes on your products through an available feature. Lastly, professional plan owners have the ability to grant access and use rights to other owners/users.
The professional plan is ideally suited for larger sellers that want more control over their products and reports and who do such a sales volume that the per-item fee would be an unnecessary expense. Starting sellers may choose to go with this plan straight away or may choose to wait and upgrade to it.
These are fees assessed to the seller at the point of sale. For individual plan owners, the fee ranges from $.45 to $1.35 per sale, on top of the standard $.99 fee. This means sellers can expect to pay between $1.44 and $2.34 per item sold. These fees are non-negotiable and are applied by Amazon.
Professional plan fees are percentage-based and can vary greatly. There are two types of fees assessed, closing fees, and referral fees which are paid on a percentage of sale basis and range between 6% and 25%, though the average is 13%. Professional plan holders can track fees with a fee calculator to determine the cost of fees associated with the sale of products.
Depending on the place of origin, taxes can vary wildly so we can’t give you an accurate estimate of what taxes, if any, are applicable. Amazon does provide professional plan members a tax calculator for U.S.-based sales. For multinational sales, the taxes can be quite high, so it is best to do some research into these costs to determine what your product is going to cost you so that you can set your shipping costs accurately.
This is what marketers refer to as the “landed cost” of an item, you take the base price of making the item and include the cost to get it to the customer to determine how much it will cost you in total. If you’re planning on selling on Amazon, it’s important to understand the role taxes play in the sale of products.
The cost of a GTIN may vary depending on the size and scope of your product sales. A standard GTIN for just a few products is a one-time fee of $30. For large companies with many products and expectations to add more, there is an annual fee associated with your GTIN and multiple GTINs may be necessary.
You can get an exemption to this, but to be a legitimate brand you must have a GTIN on every product. This is mandatory and facilitates shipping around the world. You should figure out the monthly cost of your GTINs and factor that into the cost of products just like taxes.
The first thing we’ll talk about, and this is one that big business may want to invest in to protect their property, is a registered trademark. You should already have this if you are a branded company, but we’ll assume you’re just starting and need to know the cost. Depending on the level of protection you want, the cost ranges from $225 to $400. This is not mandatory but should be considered essential if you’re using Amazon to build your brand.
Second, and this is one that has to do with getting your products sold, is Amazon PPC Ads. Advertising is an important part of getting your products sold and investing in advertising through Amazon’s PPC ads can help you drive sales to your store. There are a number of ad types, some are directed at new customers and some are directed at marketing towards existing customers through remarketing ads.
Lastly, there are additional marketing costs for influencer marketing and marketing agency representation. These are associated with the marketing methods you choose and whether or not you employ help from Amazon or an outside marketing agency
The last thing we’ll talk about in regards to fees and Amazon are the fees you pay as part of building your brand and marketing your products on Amazon. There are a number of things you can do from using Amazon’s marketing services to maximizing the SEO on your product pages to improve Google rank or running ads through the Google Ads program on outside sites or through SERP.
Using Google Ads and Ad Extensions can help you develop customer data, but these costs are based on each individual situation, like the optional fees above, these services aren’t necessary, but they may benefit your brand.
Marketing and SEO can get expensive but is one of the main ways to drive your sales up. If you’re looking to build brand exposure and sell more products quickly, then these are important steps to take.
These are the basics of many of the different fees associated with being a seller on Amazon. The exact amounts and total costs will vary, but as we’ve discussed, the total cost versus profit on Amazon is calculated by adding in all of the associated fees, the cost of the product, and subtracting that from the sale price.
By knowing this, you can determine whether Amazon is the right platform for you. You may decide the benefits are worth the increased costs or you may decide that you don’t have the right procedures in place to make it worthwhile. The last tip we will give is to get help from a marketing agency or advertising firm to help you set up and run your online shop so that you can maximize the potential for profits.
When it comes to Pay-Per-Click marketing, advertisers are inundated with an endless list of metrics to track and measure. That’s because, unlike other traditional methods of advertising, PPC offers some fantastic ways to keep tabs on every aspect of a campaign. There is no denying the fact that PPC ad campaigns are data-driven to the max.
This also makes it easy for marketers to lose themselves in all the clicks, impressions, and other rates that may or may not make a real difference to the bottom line. After all, not all metrics are equal.
This begs the question: which figures are the most important to monitor?
There isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer because the most critical metrics vary according to the goals of a PPC campaign. Still, there are a few KPIs that are fundamental for the success of every campaign.
Here are the top metrics and KPIs to monitor:
The number of conversions resulting from a campaign is almost always the first priority of an advertiser unless their objective is only brand awareness. Ultimately, profits start with conversion, so it’s the number one priority of any business.
To measure the conversion rate, divide a campaign’s conversions by its total clicks.
For instance, a campaign with fifty clicks and five conversions will give a conversion rate of 10% when expressed as a percentage. Even though conversions are significant for campaign managers, they sometimes create campaigns optimized for clicks instead.
A click is the starting point of any conversion, making it a preliminary success indicator of a PPC campaign. It takes into account the number of people who clicked on your ad.
These clicks help campaign managers tweak their approach from time to time, even during a campaign’s running time. They can check on ads’ clicks throughout to see which are performing well to put more bids on them and pause those ads completely that are not faring well.
For mid-month performance measurements, clicks are a handy KPI, but of course, you cannot rely on just clicks to determine a campaign’s success.
Similar to how your clicks generated in a campaign measure its performance, CTR plays a vital role in determining the success of a campaign’s performance.
It is measured by the division of the total number of clicks generated by your campaign in a particular period from the total impressions. So, for instance, if your ad got 150 clicks and the total impressions were 1,000, then your CTR is 15% in that case.
It is essential to understand that a perfect CTR does not exist because industry types and other variables affect the PPC performance.
According to 2018 research, the differences in the average CTR of the auto industry and the dating and personals industry were 4% and 6.05%, respectively. So, suppose campaign managers rely entirely on these numbers as a benchmark for their CTR success. In that case, they will overlook the analysis of other variables that affect their campaigns differently.
When you compare CTR from other similar campaigns, they provide a good benchmark for improving upon.
One of the most difficult KPIs to measure is the Quality Score. Created by Google, this metric aims to point out your ad content’s relevancy with the help of CTR metric and more performance variables such as landing page experience.
However, it is difficult for advertisers to understand this metric because it is not as straightforward to measure as other KPIs such as clicks.
Google can evaluate an ad’s quality score with the help of expected CTR, ad format, ad relevance, and landing page experience.
When it comes to measuring the Quality Score, Google is upfront about its process and importance. In 2017, Google improved on how it reported Quality Score in Google ads, though the following aspects need to be kept in mind:
If you pay less money to Google Ads for campaigns, you will get a good Quality Score ranging between 7 and 10. However, if you pay more for ads, you will get a bad score of 6 or lower.
With a change in the Quality Score reports, advertisers found it easier to use it in Google Ads along with the provision of KPI’s historical data. Such insights are precious for advertisers to come up with better campaign decisions.
Advertisers are always highly interested in how they can improve the Quality Score as a means to determine the cost they pay for every click.
Additionally, Quality Score can influence KPIs like CPA and CPC.
PPC advertisers usually have a set budget that guides them on how to spend on an ad campaign. However, the bid and budget they specify for a PPC campaign are not guaranteed amounts that they will end up paying.
Advertisers place a higher bid than their competitors to get ad positions but pay a bid price second to it. As a result, your competitors in a PPC auction determine the cost of the ad you put up and the clicks it generates.
If you want to know the exact amount an advertiser pays for a campaign, calculate the CPC. Divide a campaign’s total cost by the number of clicks that ad generated.
To manually calculate your campaign’s cost, multiply a campaign’s clicks with the CPC.
In addition, you should think about methods for reducing your cost per click.
For advertising campaigns, you can come up with a cost per acquisition (CPA) which is the cost of acquiring a new customer. You can determine the CPA when you divide the total conversion costs by the total conversions.
Sometimes advertisers also opt for a bidding technique for a campaign to use a targeted CPA. This helps them use a CPA according to their budget with an automatic bid setting to get maximum conversions.
It is essential to have conversion tracking, know various bidding strategies and have a minimum of thirty to fifty conversions within the past 30 days of using a targeted CPA.
We all know impressions matter a lot where ads are concerned, and it doesn’t include them clicking on it. So the number of impressions for a campaign won’t indicate its success because there is no way to tell your ad’s effectiveness on your audience.
However, with the help of impression share, you can determine the number of impressions your campaigns generate. It is calculated when you divide your campaign’s total impressions by the impressions it was eligible to have.
If you want indirect yet competitive insight, impression share is a key metric you should have an eye on. For instance, if your impression share is 50% for some keyword, you can determine that the rest of the 50% is with your competitors.
You can reduce your competitors’ ad display by increasing your impression share. On the other hand, you’ll have to improve your bids to improve their impression share.
Whether search results for a query are paid or organic, Google has a way to balance them both. Google and Bing ads are displayed on top of the results page. The first one is at the highest position, the next one underneath that, and so on.
Advertisers determine the usual position of their ads with its average position. It is important to understand that Google doesn’t always place the highest bidders’ ads in the first place, for which they use the ad rank to figure out the average position.
You can find out the ad rank when you multiply Quality Score with the maximum CPM of an advertiser. However, this is an average, so even after calculations, you can’t tell your ad’s exact position.
It is natural to aim for the first position, but this is just to satisfy numbers because it doesn’t guarantee results.
It is also possible for some advertisers to get more conversions while in the fourth position than the first one. Hence, the average position should only be used as a point of reference but not as a target indicator as it doesn’t necessarily give the information you want.
In addition, it will also benefit to look at how Google Ads extensions perform relative to the normal listings in your campaign.
More often than not, paid marketers have a monthly budget they need to follow for an ad campaign. To what extent they achieve the budget they were given is determined by the budget attainment.
However, many PPC marketers don’t measure their PPC performance based on budget attainment, even if it provides a lot of information regarding their campaign’s management.
It is not easy to bid regularly and optimize results when PPC auction variations require continuous oversight. This is why marketers end up overspending or underspending on their budget frequently.
Nonetheless, PPC marketers should consider budget attainment as a valuable KPI.
A highly significant indicator of a PPC marketers’ skills and account health is the Lifetime Value (LTV). However, it is slightly complex to calculate a paid searches’ CLV.
When companies acquire customers through paid search and retain them for a longer time, they make more revenue.
LTV can be measured in several ways, even though it evaluates a customer’s lifetime with a business’s product. For instance, a large company such as Target will have a complicated LTV due to several aspects to it like customer retention rate, applied discounts, customer lifespan, etc.
PPC marketers generally avoid such calculations, but this KPI’s measurement could be precious for other departments.
There are many KPIs that you can use, and you might be tempted to use all of them. It is essential to understand your campaign and carefully choose metrics that suit it best so you can optimize them and get better results.
Chances are that your goal is to bring more traffic to your website, increase sales and enhance brand awareness through various campaigns. Understand what works for your campaign and what doesn’t, based on the KPIs you track.
One of the great things about online marketing is that you can measure click-through rate. You can quickly review many types of statistics after you run your marketing campaign. Whether you’re doing pay-per-click (PPC), email marketing, or social media ads, you can review your click through rate daily or even hourly to see your progress.
But what should you expect your click through rate to be, after all your SEO work and online ad efforts? Sources say that the industry average is about 1.9%. However, the rate varies by industry. And for best results, your team should shoot for a higher quality scores click-through rate.
Below, we discuss click through rate overall, industry averages, plus ways you can up your click through rate and achieve better marketing success.
Below are the click-through-rates for some of the biggest online industries (Search Network CTR):
For 16 industries monitored by Google for its ad business, the average click through rate is 3.17%. For the Google Display Network, the 16-industry average is .46%.
What makes an excellent click through rate, then? There is no precise number that we can state for every business. But you want it to be as high as possible! A higher click through rate means more people viewing your product and services, which is always good.
Some marketing experts recommend having a click through rate that is at least as high as your industry average. Aim for a bit higher for best search results page.
Now you understand more about what a good click through rate is for your industry, but how to get there? Keep reading!
If you want to have a massive influence on your click-through rates, focus on keywords and match-type.
Ad copy matters, too, but that doesn’t matter unless the ad appears on a search engine result page (SERP).
If you have advertisements that have many broad match keywords, the odds are high that your copy could appear for irrelevant queries. One of the biggest culprits for broad ad groups is the keyword suggestion tool offered by Google or other search engines.
It can help you see your options, but it’s not recommended to go with their recommended match-types automatically. If you go with their recommendations, make sure to use their key at the bottom so you pick the right match type.
Signals for every match-type are:
It’s essential to practice vigilance if you can describe your product or service in ways that can net trigger queries in other industries.
Let’s say you’re a patent attorney and you love wearing patent leather shoes. But you’re probably not gunning for people viewing shoes to click on your legal ad, right?
You don’t want the word “patent” to be for any match-type – except exact.
Remember to use negative keywords to avoid queries that could come from other match-types and other keyword meanings.
For instance, cat rehabilitation can be interpreted as cat training or taking kitty to the veterinarian. The prices for each of those search results are much different. Depending on your ad budget, you may not want to use those terms that could trigger unrelated results and money down the drain.
Note that keywords that are in your advertisement groups need to be very likely to produce good queries.
If you have a shot that a long-tail keyword of 3 or more words is better, use it. However, if your specific niche has a lower search volume, you may want to choose a broad concept, as long as you have a long negative list.
Advertisement copy isn’t just a tired formulaic blurb anymore. Now we have three headlines, a couple of descriptions, and a growing list of extensions to entice our prospects to contact us.
But it’s easy to fall back into old habits and use copy backed by ‘data,’ and not take full advantage of the tools at our digital fingertips.
When humans craft your ads, you have a higher click through ratewhen the ad includes an H3 and D2 – about 8%. When there is no H3 and no D2, the click through rate falls to about 5%.
Mobile devices usually only give two headlines but usually do list both descriptions. Also, using the description provides the ad with more beef. The larger ad usually produces a better click through rate.
Also, note that ads that have all descriptions in headlines get a high CTR, studies show. So, please use them.
You’d be surprised to learn how many suitable ads lack a strong CTA or call-to-action. If your advertisement doesn’t have a strong CTA, you’re tossing your money away. Remember to use one of these:
The purpose of paying for paid search ad is to get prospects to act – go to your website. Some experienced hands say CTAs work great in H2. Others like to lead the ad with the CTA. You can test both in your industry and see which produces.
Note that having repetitive language in your ad will ding your Click through rate. For example, using a single word three times or more in an ad generally lowers engagement.
Who is seeing your online advertising, where and on which device are big deals for a high Click through rate. If you’re going after more than one region, remember that people around the country think and search differently.
Putting every region in your country makes the ppc account easy to manage, but it could hurt/effect click through rate(CTR).
Google lets you make the target location a choice in an ad campaign, so you could need to limit the first campaign to one or two markets. When you have hard data on which ad works best, you may expand to more markets, change up the ads and keywords per the local search methods.
All it can take is to alter your ad’s copy to ‘request a call back’ after hours. It shows you’re a human thinking about the person reading the ad.
Now you should know more about the ideal/good CTR and how to boost yours. We can help you with our PPC management services, including help with your suspended Google Ads account. Contact us today!
Advertising on the web is an ever-evolving space filled with the potential for billions of people to see your ads and literally thousands of metrics to determine who to target, when, and where. That’s why it’s important to have the right Flexible bid strategies in place when you go to try and win that all-important ad space on Google.
PPC ads have the potential to generate many high-quality and high converting leads to your site or business, but only if you do it right. Trying to pick the right strategy can be a mind-numbing process. Beyond just the headache-inducing number of metrics that are available, there is a whole realm of other considerations to make to figure out how, when, and where to run your PPC ads.
Google itself can do a lot to help you figure out who to target and when. The trouble is, unless you have experience and know exactly what you’re doing, you may find yourself wasting ad dollars on typical “set it and forget it” ad campaigns.
You’ll often find that these campaigns aren’t doing much other than throwing your money away. If you want to make the most of them, you have to stay on top of your ad campaigns and the strategies you’re using.
This first section deals with how ad campaigns should operate and how to tell if yours are in a good position for new flexible bid strategies.
Before we dive into the different strategies and how to implement them, we want to set you up for success. To do that, we’re going to break down what you should be doing to put yourself in a prime position to make use of the different flexible bid strategies that are available.
The very first thing we recommend doing if you aren’t already is getting in touch with a PPC management company. If you already have one, and they’re not using flexible bid strategies, then you may want to take a look at what you’re paying for and how much you’re paying. Oftentimes, agency fees and returns may not align with your goals or the level of service may not meet up to the needs of your particular ad campaigns. You may want to consider firing your PPC agency if you notice that they’re wasting ad dollars, you’re not seeing growth or other signs that you’re throwing money away.
Once you have that settled and you’ve gotten with an agency that knows what they’re doing, the first thing you really want them to do is to perform a PPC audit. The purpose of having an agency do a PPC audit is to get a sense of where your ad campaigns are at and what is potentially going wrong. Google Ads gives you loads of valuable data, but that doesn’t necessarily tell you what to do with it.
By getting an audit done, you can find out where your ad dollars are going, how much of a return on investment (ROI) you’re getting, and what the problems are. Not only that, but you’ll actually get actionable steps you can take to make improvements on your ad campaigns to see them grow your return on ad spend (ROAS).
They say “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” but if it is broke, you might want to actually know how to fix it or take it to someone who can. That’s why getting with a PPC management company and getting an audit done should be your first step.
Next, we’ll discuss how to analyze your marketing objectives to make sure they line up with your business goals.
Part of knowing what’s wrong and how to fix it means understanding your goals and what you’re really trying to do with your ad campaigns. It may be that depending on the type of campaign you’re running, you may find that while you think a search campaign is best, you want a local PPC campaign, because you’re trying to drive traffic to a brick-and-mortar store.
Through Google’s advanced resources for ad campaigns, you can help to identify your goals and the type of campaigns you should be running. Then, with the help of your ad agency, you can pick the best practices for the types of goals that you have and your advertising budget.
Google’s metrics can help you figure out what campaign to run and a PPC agency can help you execute the process, including managing your bids, increasing your bids, making changes to existing campaigns starting new campaigns, and monitoring performance.
If you find that the objectives you had set aren’t right for your business, then it may be time to pull out of any existing campaigns, reevaluate, and then relaunch.
One flaw that some agencies and businesses often make is to continue to run with an existing campaign that isn’t working. Part of analyzing your marketing objectives is determining if a campaign that’s failing can be salvaged or not. There’s no point in going down with the ship if you can make it back to shore and try again later with a better boat.
Now that we’ve covered how to align your goals with your marketing strategy, it’s time to talk about how you measure success via key metrics.
Sometimes the problem isn’t even the ad campaign itself; it’s the data you’re using to drive the ad campaign. Realistically, if you’re using an ad agency, they should be helping you do this. If you don’t really know what you want out of your ad campaigns, it can be tricky to manage.
If for instance, you’re in the eCommerce space, but when running ads, you’re not looking at the time of day when consumers are more likely to shop and complete a purchase (we’re not talking about those 2 AM window shoppers who click ad to cart and never buy anything) then you’re likely running ads at the wrong time and not targeting the proper audience.
Additionally, the type of ad and the platform you run them on can make a major difference, too. Demographics change based on the platform the ads are seen on and the likelihood of conversion is tied to that as well.
For example, managing Facebook ads is entirely different from managing your Google search ads. Your audience changes based on the types of ads you run and not knowing who is doing what will lead to wasted ad dollars. From your Google Ads account, you can see all the data you could ever need to figure out who’s logging on, where they’re seeing your ads, when they’re most likely to click them, and when they actually follow through and convert.
If your ad timing or methods aren’t meshing with the majority of your traffic, then it’s a safe bet that you’re wasting your money.
It’s also important to note that these metrics aren’t static values that you can keep running with forever once you know them. Marketing is ever-moving, ever-changing and you have to put in the work to keep up. That’s why we recommend having a marketing agency do the work, but making sure that it’s one that has your goals in mind and is willing to stay on top of the key metrics and the space you’re in to keep your ads performing their best.
That’s why we’ve written this guide to flexible bid strategy in the first place. There are some experts and businesses that still believe that once you’ve locked in a bid strategy that works, you’re good to go. That’s not how ad campaigns or marketing in general operate. What works today may stop working tomorrow. Flexible bid strategy are designed to be just that, flexible.
The next section covers what automated or Manual bidding actually is and how it works. We know some readers have a good grasp of the concept, but for those that don’t, this is key information before implementing a flexible bid strategy Aims.
Just because flexible bid strategies have the word flexible in their name doesn’t mean that you can just set them and change them any way you choose at any time. The better you understand automated bidding, the better you can make use of the powerful tool that it is.
All automated bidding strategies work off of parameters that you set. This means that if it doesn’t work, it’s likely tied back to something you told the program to do. With enough input and the right configurations, automated or different Flexible bidding strategies can work like magic for your ad campaign, routinely scoring you the optimal converting ad space you need to drive loads of high converting traffic to your site.
That’s why we said that it’s not about a “set it and forget it mentality.” You have to constantly monitor your Flexible bid strategies and adjust them to meet your needs as they change. As your business grows, your audience grows and changes with it. To think of it logically, think about ads that are run for products, consider what happens if new products are added to an existing line, the target audience may change and grow with the product line. That means your existing ad campaigns need to adjust too.
Flexible bid strategies allow you to move and adjust parameters on the fly. The different strategies also allow you to account for different metrics and adjust your return expectations if your audience and traffic volume change. If you have more traffic but few conversions, you can adjust your ad strategy to maximize conversions for the increased traffic flow.
The upcoming section deals with flexible bid strategies in practice and how to properly implement them based on your needs. We included some key pointers that apply to each strategy and how best to use them.
All your bidding strategies can be managed through your Google Ads account dashboard. From the dashboard, you can see all of the different ad strategies that you have available and can create and modify them as you see fit.
Among your choices, there are 6 flexible bid strategies that allow Google to automate your bidding process while giving you the control you need to adjust your bids if something isn’t working or your market changes.
This is one of the standard Google ad campaign strategies and is used when you want your bids to drive traffic over all else. You can control spending by setting a maximum bid amount and a maximum daily ad spend amount. This does not factor in conversion rates or other factors. It will target based on your set keywords, and the bidding will moderate within your set/target spend amount so that you don’t go over budget.
This strategy is best implemented when your main goal is just to get more people to see your site over all else. As we said, this focuses on clicks and not conversions, but sometimes click volume can relate to conversion and brand recognition. The ability to set and monitor spending lets you have more control over ad spend if you’re on a tight budget, or if you’re experimenting with a new ad campaign and want to see what type of results you can get without breaking the bank.
You can, of course, implement this strategy without setting daily spending limits/target spend amount, but this can burn through your ad spend budget. Our best implementation advice is to use this strategy when you need maximum site traffic without blowing your ad budget.
Targeted automated flexible bid strategies are great for when you want to win auctions that offer a certain value for the ad dollars you spend. In the case of this strategy, you can set a percentage value for what type of return you want on every ad dollar that is spent, and Google will automatically adjust bid amounts and auction preferences based on available data.
There are a few caveats to this strategy. Target ROAS strategies are built to get you the most return they can; this means that they will only target auctions based on the available data and are likely to generate the set return based on the available data. This also means that in most cases, they will spend whatever is calculated to be necessary to win auctions. This can be a problem if you don’t set the values for your maximum daily ad spend and the maximum cost per click.
Even with high returns, you can find yourself spending more per click than you end up actually converting. For example, say you pay $15 to get 3 new customers, sounds great right? But then those customers come into your store and only spend $3 each. You’ve effectively spent more for customers than you gain by acquiring them. ROAS strategies aren’t perfect, so you’re working partly on data and partly on guesswork.
The second issue is that if your ROAS is set too high, you may find that the bidding is too selective and you don’t wind up winning very many auctions as a result, meaning fewer ads overall.
If you have great metrics and lots of data built up to facilitate a solid understanding of the types of auctions to bid on, then a targeted ROAS strategy is the perfect option to ensure that your ad dollars aren’t wasted. Just make sure you set a spending maximum bid limit so you don’t outpace your budget.
This is another targeted strategy that bids based on a set value. In this case, it’s the cost per customer or cost per acquisition. This is not to be confused with a cost-per-action model that calculates costs based on clicks or other actions. A cost per acquisition targeting strategy bids on ads based on an average set by the campaign owner.
Google will adjust bids higher or lower, within a range of the target Cost Per acquisition in order to win auctions. Target cost per acquisition, You must have at least 15 conversions in the past 30 days and an average conversion rate over the last 7 days in order to implement this strategy. Beyond the base requirements, like other targeting strategies, the more data you have about past conversions and customer data you can feed into it, the better it will perform.
This strategy is ideally implemented when you’re interested in achieving valuable conversions while controlling the cost. This type of targeting strategy has more control than a ROAS strategy as the bidding can fluctuate within a set range without spending too high or bidding on too few auctions.
This strategy is an evolved form of the standard cost per click model. It takes the standard cost per click structure and automatically adjusts the bidding up or down within a set range to win auctions that maximize conversions.
A standard CPC campaign bids on auctions at or under a certain cost per click without regard for other factors. This is done to control spending. Enhanced CPC gives the same measure of control while accounting for conversion rates. This means that you can control cost per click spending while still getting the benefits of higher conversion rates.
If you’re trying to control spending and need to reign in CPC, but still want ads that convert, this is a valuable strategy.
This strategy is used when you want your ads to rank higher than competitors in the same space. The automated bidding algorithm will adjust or increase your bid to beat out a competitor to either appear higher up on the SERP or to appear more frequently than a competitor.
The strategy is based on estimates and attempts to win auctions over competitors so that when ads are displayed yours show up first or more frequently. The issue with this strategy is that it does not actually raise your ad rank, the spending is not as easy to monitor, and there are no guarantees that you will always outrank your competitors as the results are estimates based on available data.
This is a useful strategy when you have a competitive market and are trying to gain some market share over others. Be mindful of your spending and you can make some ground in the market by manipulating ad placement to your advantage.
The goal of the target search Page Location strategy is to get your ad either on the top of the page or somewhere on page one of the SERP. Marketers know how valuable SERP placement is, especially on page one.
A target search Page Location strategy cannot guarantee that you will end up on the top of a page or that you will land on page one of the SERP. Each individual auction is different and based on the number of competitors and your quality score, your placement will change with these factors and the result of the auction.
While the Target search Page Location strategy isn’t bulletproof, Target search Page Location are the best option when you’re trying to maximize visibility over all else. It can help you appear on page one or on the top of pages and at the very least ensures that people will see your ads some of the time.
So, there we are, the 6 flexible bid strategies and how best to use them to improve your business. Hopefully, we’ve given you the advice and strategies you need to use each of these strategies to the best of their potential. Whether you’re trying to control spending, improve exposure, beat your competitors, or maximize conversions, one of these flexible bid strategies will work for you.
As long as you remember to set your parameters and monitor your bids, these options offer more control and more choice than typical bid strategies and will improve your odds of success. Remember, PPC isn’t something you can set on autopilot. Do your research, keep tabs, and get help from a PPC agency to maximize your marketing effectiveness.
From its origins as a digital yearbook for Ivy League students in 2004, Facebook has indeed come a long way.
For instance, nobody could have envisioned that nearly 20 years later, it would supplant TV as an advertising platform for a fraction of a cost.
From the exclusive enclaves of Harvard–and later Yale and Stanford–today’s Facebook users are estimated to be nearly three billion from all corners of the globe.
Now, businesses may think that the primary purpose of creating a Facebook pages is to get as many likes or follows as possible. So, their marketing strategy is designed to achieving this goal.
After that, they no longer have any idea of how to get their followers to take the next step toward dipping into their pockets for their wallets.
The fact is that more than 9 in 10 of your visitors have no intention of buying. It is now up to you to convince them otherwise.
Sure, it is nice to see the number of followers tick up, and you may enjoy bragging rights over their competitors. But your social standing will not impact your profits in the long run unless you do something.
And that is where Facebook Retargeting ads comes in.
When you are personally managing your Facebook advertising/Facebook retargeting ad, you may have an idea of who your customers are based on their profiles. But do you know the reason why they visited your website or Facebook page?
You might say because they are paying customers.
How much are you betting that your assumption is correct? Are you willing to wager your company’s fate? Scratch that. You do not need to make that bet because it is essentially what you are doing anyway.
Make sure that the data supports your assumption if you are going to mortgage your future.
How can you convert them into loyal customers rather than one-time customers?
Facebook retargeting ads is an invaluable tool that will help identify the people who visited your website and then study their data to spot patterns and intent.
You can then use this data to create compelling ads to make them revisit your site and make a purchase.
Facebook Retargeting ads can help your company in a myriad of ways.
The first step is preparing a list of the prospects you want to target.
Creating the list is quite easy because there are multiple tools you can use, such as analytics, visitor profiles on your website, or your brick-and-mortar store. You can also gather data through your customer relationship management software.
You can prepare your customer list in the following formats before you can upload them on Facebook:
Your custom audience may also be identified by the country/city/state/provide where they are based. The Zip Code may also be entered as an identifier, along with the birth date and gender.
You can launch your Facebook ad campaign using the Facebook Ads Manager tool.
But first, you need to install the Facebook pixel. It is a small modification to your code, which is a powerful tool to track users and their online behavior after interacting with your brand.
Once they click on your ad, added an item to their cart, or visited your website, you ensnare the customer in your web of omnipresence.
Even if they leave, you can follow the cookie crumbs to easily track them across the Internet.
Everywhere they go, they will be reminded of you, like the one that got away, or perhaps an itch on their back that they could not reach to scratch.
Installing the Facebook pixel is quite straightforward. Before anything else, you need the following elements:
A. Creating a Facebook pixel
B. Add the Pixel
The next step is to add the pixel code into your website’s source code. You can choose to do it manually, use a partner integration, or email the instructions to your website administrator or engineer.
Generally, you only need one pixel across multiple business sites.
But there are times when you need to add multiple pixels, like when there are two separate ads on your website. The marketing agencies may decide to run separate pixels for their dynamic ads.
1. Head on to Ad Creation to create your dynamic ad. Make sure to select the audience who already interacted with your services and products on Facebook or other platforms. You can then retarget them first.
2. Next is to select your retargeting option. There are multiple ways to do this.
3. There is an option to identify the number of days where the last audience activity was recorded. Enter your answer.
4. Show Advanced Options if you want to include Lookalike Audiences in your Custom Audience targeting. Lookalike Audience refers to that underserved segment of potential buyers who share similar intent and goals with your existing customers.
The catalog is necessary to create your Dynamic Ads.
The catalog is a repository of all your products that you want to advertise on the platform. Facebook retargeting ads recommends creating a single catalog rather than different inventories to minimize confusion.
If you already have an eCommerce website from Shopify, you can integrate it seamlessly into your ad campaign. If not, you will have to create your business Catalog.
You click on Commerce Manager to get started.
With retargeting campaigns, you can tailor your ad according to the specifications of the customer.
For instance, you can target prospects who visited your website or competitor sites as they browse for products that interested them.
The question is, why did they not convert?
You can then tweak your ad to address the pain points of the customer, making them more likely to buy.
Using Facebook Retargeting ads, you can increase site visits by over 700%!
The first stage is to get them to click on your ad because the same data revealed that the customers are 26% more likely to make a purchase when they do.
After defining the parameters of your Custom Audience, you can then begin to launch your facebook retargeting campaign.
Go back to your main business profile page, and move your cursor to the top-right of your screen to select “Create an Ad.”
Simply follow Facebook’s instructions on how to start your campaign, including your budget, your audience, the frequency of your ad, and the schedule to display your ad.
You also need to outline your marketing objective to give Facebook an idea of your business goals. In this way, it can further hone on the types of customers you want to target.
For instance, eCommerce sites are for-profit organizations. Facebook will target the audience not only for their buying capacity but whether or not they are likely to engage with your business.
As you can see from the options, some websites are not interested solely in profits. They may want to expand their brand reach, generate leads, increase engagement, and website traffic.
Facebook is an affordable platform for marketers to display their dynamic ads.
You can already advertise for as little as $1.00 a day. In fact, it is recommended that you first low-ball Facebook, especially during the early stages.
The idea is to run analytics to determine which among your ads yield the most ROI. You can then rationalize your future budgets.
For instance, you can optimize your poorly performing ads or abandoning them together to focus on your more successful facebook campaigns.
You need to remember the three primary factors for how Facebook will present your ads to your target/custom audiences:
There is a reason why Facebook created the Lowest Cost option, and it is ideal for:
The Lowest Cost It is not the best determinant of the cost per action (CPA) rate, although Facebook claims that it will try to bring you the cheapest cost results.
The final cost will hinge on the bidding activity. The stiffer the competition, the higher the rates.
When launching your Facebook retargeting campaigns, make sure to create different types of content.
The idea is to test your ad using trial and error.
Different ads may have different outcomes depending on conditions, target/custom audiences, and frequency.
You can even take the shotgun approach. Launch simultaneous ads at once and see which one sticks. Analytics will give you a good glimpse of where you are successful and which areas you went wrong.
It is better to target your top prospects and customers first rather than deploy your ad to all your customers. You can get better results this way as your data will have less noise.
Facebook Retargeting ads is a novel way to advertise to your prospects without being too creepy about it. It is also a more affordable way to get the word out about your brand and direct your prospects to your sales funnel.
More importantly, do not forget A/B testing on all your Facebook ads to reduce guesswork in your future marketing campaigns.
Would you like to see more sales and signups from your landing pages? If you’re not happy with your conversion rate, you can certainly improve your results. However, it takes a commitment to a long-term strategy to see significant results that stick.
Creating a high converting landing page requires more than just writing some quick sales copy and publishing it on a webpage. From start to finish, creating a landing page takes research, planning, testing, adjusting, and more testing.
Optimizing a landing page to convert at a high rate requires multiple revisions sandwiched between multiple tests. Landing page optimization is an ongoing process. Even highly optimized landing page can be further improved. Unless you have a 100% conversion rate optimization there’s always room for improvement.
If you’re tired of minimal conversions and you’re wondering what you can do about it, you’re in the right place. This article will explain several ways you can increase your landing page conversion rate.
As a brief summary, to increase your conversions you need to identify opportunities for improvement and then implement the necessary changes. You can identify improvement opportunities by performing tests, which will all be explained below.
Here are X landing page tests you can run – and X changes you can make – to improve your landing page conversion rates.
Optimizing your landing page to increase your conversion rate optimization will rely on testing. Although you should hire a professional marketing agency to set up your tests, here’s a general idea of how it works.
Once creating landing page, that landing page is considered your “control.” Then, you create copies of your control page and change 1 or 2 elements on the page – preferably just one change at a time. Then, you market those pages through ads to the same target demographics and see which pages convert better.
When you identify the highest converting page, that page becomes your “control” and you can tweak additional elements to test those changes. This process is repeated on a regular basis.
Here are 4 landing page elements you’ll want to create variations for when running your tests. Since PPC ads begin the process of conversion, that’s where you’ll want to start optimizing first.
Traffic to your landing page will almost always come from PPC ad campaigns. There are other possible sources, but most people stick with PPC ads. Whether you’re using PPC ads or another ad source, start testing variations of your headlines and copy.
Headlines are the most important part of any ad. An effective headline will capture someone’s attention and influence them to click. The easiest way to capture attention with a headline is to promise to solve a big problem. Granted, your landing page copy will need to make good on that promise if you want conversions.
Your landing page visitors/website visitors will be heavily influenced by whatever they are exposed to right before arriving on your landing page. In other words, your PPC ads aren’t just a way to get clicks – they’re actually the beginning of the process of persuasion.
You can use your PPC ads to create a state of mind that will make visitors more perceptive to your marketing messages on your landing page.
Persuasion expert and author Robert Cialdini explains how this works, in detail, in his book Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade. However, he gave plenty of useful information in an interview with Forbes.
In the interview, Cialdini explained that researchers generated a higher participation rate from people by asking a question to get people thinking about how they are helpful people. When asking for help with a marketing survey, only 29% would participate. When asking a pre-suasive question, “Do you consider yourself a helpful person?” 77% of people agreed to participate.
If you’re running your own tests outside of a marketing agency, be willing to continually test ad headlines and copy. Improvement is an ongoing process that takes time.
In addition to your ad copy, your ad images (where applicable) have the potential to influence conversions. Before you start randomly testing images, read what other people have discovered to save yourself from having to reinvent the wheel.
For example, most people have learned through trial and error that proper contrast is more important than specific colors. Although, blue tends to be a good choice for a specific color scheme.
Wherever your ads display images, keep your images simple and relevant to your ad. Avoid gradients and complex graphic details that will make your image hard to see.
Your landing page design consists of the following:
There are seemingly endless variations you can create to test landing page elements. Unless you’re running a large budget marketing campaign, it’s important to start with one element at a time. For example, you might create variations of your landing page performance that includes all testimonials at the bottom of the page and another variation that sprinkles testimonials throughout the content.
Just like you’ll test your PPC ad headline and copy, you’ll want to test your landing page headlines and copy. Remember that people tend to scan copy rather than read it from start to finish. Because people scan, powerful, influential headlines will help your conversions.
The most important heading on your entire landing page is the top heading. Work on that heading first and then optimize the remaining headings.
For the most part, the changes you’ll make to your landing page will depend on what you’re testing. However, there are 5 basic changes you can make to your landing page that will optimize your conversions.
Distractions make it hard for visitors to know what to do next. Should they play the video or click on a link you provided in your sales copy? Or should they keep reading your sales page?
It’s important to create your landing page to be free from distractions. You’ll probably want to create a custom page template to start with a blank slate. It seems natural to create your landing page from an existing web page as a template. However, doing that will create multiple distractions for your visitors.
Landing pages need to be free from distractions. Distractions divert visitor attention away from your sales copy and can kill your conversion rate.
What counts as a distraction? Technically, anything that stops a visitor from reading your copy or pulls them away from the page is a distraction. Elements like:
Any and all links you insert into your sales copy on your landing page should place whatever item you’re selling into your visitor’s shopping cart. Aside from links in the footer, any other links will hurt your conversions.
Avoid linking to content in your landing page sales copy. You don’t want visitors to land on your sales page, click a link, and start wandering around your website or someone else’s website. You want visitors to stay on your sales page until they make a purchase.
Every link you publish on a sales page is one more opportunity for visitors to bounce without making a purchase. Don’t give visitors a reason to wander away from your sales page.
Navigation menus are the worst distraction for visitors on a sales page. If a visitor sees a navigation menu, they might start exploring your site instead of reading your sales copy.
You’ve probably seen landing pages with navigation, and there are exceptions. For example, navigation is okay if your landing page is a self-contained mini-website designed to provide visitors with important information. In that context, navigation is helpful.
On dynamic landing pages designed to generate sales or signups, a navigation menu will be a distraction and kill your conversions.
If you use your main web pages as a template for your landing page, make sure to eliminate the sidebar. Sidebar content will distract visitors and if it’s clickable, they’ll end up bouncing.
No matter what the content, sidebars don’t belong on landing pages – not even if the content is related to your product. If you have so much information that you want to present it to visitors in a sidebar, your landing page is already too complicated.
With few exceptions, landing page should be straightforward, simple, and clean. No navigation, no non-sale-related links, and no sidebar content.
Do you know the difference between a content writer and a copywriter?
If you’ve hired a content writer to write your landing page sales copy, you’ve hired a professional in the wrong industry. You need a copywriter, not a content writer. While both types of writers can be highly skilled, they’re entirely different professions.
Get your landing page copy written by a professional copywriter. It’s important to find a copywriter and not a blogger or content writer. Although content writers and bloggers can be phenomenal writers, high-level writing skills can actually prevent someone from writing effective sales copy.
Effective sales copy requires speaking directly to a well-defined target market using persuasive copywriting techniques that often defy grammar, punctuation, and other writing ‘rules.’
Say you’re an SEO firm selling an SEO Mastery Course that teaches entrepreneurs how to get high-level results. Your sales copy will directly influence your conversion rate and it won’t be based on perfect grammar.
You could have a landing page with well-written copy, perfect grammar and punctuation, and your conversions might still be low. Why? Good sales copy isn’t defined by the same standards as a good blog article. In fact, effective sales copy often uses incomplete sentences, incorrect punctuation, and a conversational tone that would make any English teacher whip out a red pen.
The point with sales copy isn’t to write perfect copy – it’s to persuade the reader to take a specific action. That often requires breaking the rules of grammar, punctuation, and style.
“Our SEO Mastery Course will show you how to get big results. Our expert SEO professionals will teach you how to increase your ranking in the search engines using several powerful techniques not available to the public.”
“If you’re like most entrepreneurs, you’ve learned a little SEO, but it’s not enough. You want agency-level results without the price tag. You don’t mind doing the work – if only you knew the secrets.
Imagine learning 2 closely-guarded SEO techniques that will make leads pour in faster than you can follow-up with. Imagine generating instant sales from leads who have no prior contact with your brand. Marketing pros do it all the time and you can, too.
When you take our SEO Mastery Course, you’ll learn some of the top SEO secrets marketing gurus keep from even their top students. When you implement these strategies, you’ll get breakthrough results you never thought possible.”
Both versions of copy are well-written, but the copywriter’s version is specifically written to persuade the reader to buy the SEO Mastery Course.
The biggest difference is in the style and tone. Content writers are trained to create informative, factual, well-researched copy. Copywriters create persuasive copy using specific techniques to influence the reader.
The best solution is to hire one of the A-listers like David Deutsch or John Carlton. However, you may not have a 5-figure budget.
If you’re on a budget, work with a marketing agency to get access to copywriters. If that’s out of your budget, start poking around online to find copywriters for hire.
When you find a possible copywriter, ask to see a portfolio, and if possible, e the stats for how well their copy performs. Good copywriters get paid royalties for their work. They should be able to provide statistics on how well their copy has performed for past clients. If a copywriter doesn’t know how well their copy performs, keep looking for someone who can provide you with that information.
Good typography is critical for conversions. Although, with typography, less is more. You don’t want visitors to notice your typography – you want all typography to blend into the experience of reading your sales page or watching your video.
Simplify your typography as much as possible. Use a web-safe font face, preferably Arial or Times New Roman. Don’t use background colors other than white or off-white with black or dark gray main text. It’s okay to use colors in your copy and as headings. However, avoid the high-contrast color schemes that use black or dark backgrounds with light text.
If you really want to dive into the art of persuasion using typography, read up on the 2012 experiment run by Errol Morris published in the New York Times. In the experiment, 40,000 readers read a passage from a book and were asked if they agreed with the passage by stating ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ The experiment utilized 6 different typefaces and determined that:
Typography can be a tedious element to optimize, but if you have the time and dedication it’s worth the effort.
Simplifying your landing page design and colors, and reducing the number of elements used will support an increase in landing page’s conversion rates / page speed/page load time. Ideally, your landing pages should be as plain as possible – almost boring in terms of design. Plain or ugly landing pages convert better than fancy landing pages.
Why do ugly sites convert more than fancy sites? Technically, it’s because plain and ugly sites contain little to no distractions and just offer the ‘meat and potatoes’ of the content. In other words, a website’s value is more accessible on an ugly site than a fancy site. There’s no eye candy, which is perfect for conversions.
When you create plain or ‘ugly’ landing pages, you’re stripping away all the bells and whistles and presenting pure content. It’s a natural way to prevent yourself from creating unnecessary barriers to the sale.
Another element that might seem strange is using large ‘buy’ buttons. At first, it might seem cheesy and spammy to use huge ‘buy’ buttons that take up most of the viewport. However, just like the ugly site phenomenon, large ‘buy’ buttons increase conversions.
If you’re not sure about using large ‘buy’ buttons, you can always split test your buttons against your highest converting page.
Optimizing your marketing strategy is the final component required to increase your landing page conversion rate. Here are 4 changes you can make to your marketing strategy to get better results.
How well do you know your market? How long has it been since you researched your market? Have you researched your market or are you guessing?
Finding your target market is a lot like generating a keyword list for SEO; both require extensive research and your opinion might not be accurate. For example, many business owners make the mistake of thinking they are their own target audience market. So, they craft marketing messages that appeal to them. In reality, their main market is usually an entirely different demographic.
No matter what your product is, only research can pinpoint your target market. Even when your market seems obvious, you can always go deeper. For example, if you sell socks, your obvious market is everyone. However, you won’t sell many socks marketing to everyone with a general message. Even when you sell a product as universal as socks, you still need to define a smaller group of people so you can craft specific, targeted messages to the group.
Market research will open the door for you to discover more about your market than you can gather from your own thoughts. With in-depth market research, you can discover multiple sub-niches that are also individual markets you can target with even more detailed and tailored marketing messages.
Most products and services have more than one target market. However, some markets are more profitable than others. Still, if you can target multiple niche segments of your market, you’ll increase conversions.
Specific marketing messages tailored for your market segments will increase conversions. Here’s how that works. Say you’re selling frozen black bean burritos. You can market your burritos to people who love black bean burritos and you’ll generate decent conversions.
You can also market your frozen black bean. burritos to people who don’t have time to cook and you’ll probably get more sales – even from people who aren’t too thrilled about black beans. Why? When marketing to that segment, the product is convenience. When marketing to burrito lovers, the product is the black bean burrito.
This is where having a professional copywriter will help you the most. They’ll know exactly how to write unique sales copy that reaches multiple market segments.
You’ll get landing page conversion rate when your marketing message is effective. To be effective, your marketing message needs to be targeted. Sales and conversions will increase as your marketing message more specifically targets your market. However, it’s important that you direct your marketing message to a specific target au market rather than creating a general marketing message.
The world’s top A-list copywriters get results because they write sales copy that targets specific markets. They’ve perfected their craft over many years and often earn tens of thousands of dollars – plus royalties – for writing just a few paragraphs.
For example, the late copywriting master Dan Kennedy was routinely hired by large corporations to see if his copy could outperform the company’s control piece. When Kennedy was allowed to run with his ideas, his copy outperformed the company’s control by a landslide.
However, Kennedy ran into the same problem with nearly every company that contracted him. He would go into a marketing meeting and people would toss out random advertising ideas based on the product’s features. If the company was selling a perfume, they’d toss out creative ideas for a product name, what colors to use, how to package the product, and what kind of music to put in the ad.
Nobody in the marketing meetings would talk about the target market.
In these meetings, Kennedy would redirect the conversation and get people talking about the target rather than the product.
Thinking of the target is the only way you’ll develop effective marketing messages. Effective copy speaks directly to the target rather than about the product.
The difference between copy that speaks to a target and copy that talks about the product is a small, yet critical distinction. Here’s a simple example:
With the Speedy Coffee Maker Pro, you can make a fresh cup of hot coffee without getting out of bed. Just open the app, choose your flavor and strength, and hit ‘brew.’ Coffee has never been so easy.
Have you gone to work empty-handed because you didn’t have time to brew your morning coffee? With the Speedy Coffee Maker Pro and app, you can brew a fresh pot of hot coffee before you get out of bed. Take that extra five minutes in the shower. Your coffee will be waiting. Just fill your favorite mug on your way out the door.
The difference between these two marketing messages is huge. The first message that simply discusses the product’s features is not a targeted message and won’t be that effective. There will always be some people who will buy items without targeted messaging, but it’s a small number.
The second message speaks directly to a target market consisting of busy people who don’t have time to make coffee in the morning, but can’t function without their coffee. This isn’t the most specific target possible, but it’s targeted enough to give you an idea of what specific targeting looks like.
Once your landing pages contain professionally-written, targeted sales copy, there’s one more step to ensure success. Your traffic source needs to be highly targeted as well.
It’s easy to manipulate people into clicking on PPC ads. However, that tactic will only decrease your landing page conversion rates.
Your PPC ads create an expectation for what the content will be your landing page. When people click on your advertisement, they expect the target page to be relevant to the ad. If the content doesn’t deliver on the promise in your ad, or if the content was hyped up in the ad, your visitors will bounce.
Additionally, if you’re running PPC ads to random demographics, you’re wasting your marketing budget. There are people who click on ads that look casually interesting even if they’re not part of that market.
The solution is to first work on defining your target market’s demographics. Then, optimize your PPC ads to be displayed for your target market. Ultimately, you’ll increase your landing page conversion rates when you target the right people with relevant and influential messages.
Although there are separate components, it’s all one continuous experience, from your PPC ad to your landing page.
You can’t increase landing page conversion rate by only optimizing your landing page. Increasing conversions is a trifecta that includes optimizing your landing page, your PPC ads, and your target demographics.
The tips and strategies outlined in this article will help you optimize your PPC ads and landing pages to generate higher conversion rates. However, your ability to get conversions will always hinge on how well you know – and target – your market.
Don’t skip market research, and don’t confuse market research with checking out keywords using Google Analytics. Market research is a fundamental aspect of marketing that has been somewhat lost in the DIY marketing revolution of the last decade or so.
It’s understandable if you’re on a tight budget and you can’t afford to pay a research firm for information on your target market. However, not having access to that information will hold you back. However, there are things you can do on your own to discover more about your market.
Are your conversions lacking? Does DIY marketing sound too exhausting? Get more conversions effortlessly by partnering with PPC.co. We’ll help you create a powerful PPC ad campaign that reaches your most profitable target market and we’ll create landing pages with professionally-written copy that sells.
Contact us today and tell us what you need. We’ll help you creating landing pages or high converting landing pages & get the landing page conversions you deserve.
Everyone that has worked with pay-per-click (PPC) ads knows how competitive the landscape is. PPC is all about jockeying for ad position, and it’s an endless struggle against your fiercest competitors.
Needless to say, PPC is a cutthroat industry.
If only there was a way to gain some type of advantage…
Actually, Google ads uses an ad rank formula that’s responsible for advertisers fighting for online placement. Understanding how this ad formula works can provide you with a competitive advantage.
Google’s ad formula is broken up into three different parts:
Honing in on these areas and ensuring they are top quality will undoubtedly help your ad rank at the top of any search page. Below, you’ll learn all about Google ad rank formula and begin putting in the work to outrank your top competitors.
The first area of Google’s ad rank formula we’ll discuss is the CPC of your bids. When you think of an ad rank position, think of how popularity existed in high school. Everyone wants the top spot, but you’ll have to be willing to pay to get there.
By using Google’s keyword research tool and browsing your own dashboard, you can quickly learn where you ad ranking in relation to the top spot of your chosen keywords. In fact, Google does all of the hard work in telling you how much you’ll need to bid to reach the top spot for a keyword.
Though, sometimes this feature isn’t completely accurate. A general rule of thumb to follow is when you add a new keyword to your dashboard, view the estimate from Google’s dashboard, and round up to the nearest ten to determine your maximum CPC bid.
For example, if Google shows an estimate of $14.26, you should expect to spend at least $20. After a few days of running your campaign, you can start lowering your bid if your google ads are doing great and lowering it if they are performing poorly.
The status column will let you know if your bid is below the first page bid. Until you receive any information otherwise, you should place your maximum CPC bid at the amount Google requests for your ad rank on the first page.
Lastly, the average position column on the Google Ads dashboard is where your ads are showing up live. To recap, the first three positions are at the very top of Google search results page/Search Engine results page and are the most likely to be clicked on.
All other positions will fall to the other pages on Google and will likely never be clicked on. This column should help any advertiser let you know when to raise and lower your build. Your choice should be based on where you want your ad rank to be positioned on Google and the budget you have to spend.
When you are in a very low position, you should double your bid. On the other hand, if your ad is in a top position, you should slowly lower your bid to take advantage of a few extra clicks for your budget. Or, you can use automated bidding.
When you’re new to setting up a Google ads campaign, expect to raise your bid at first to optimize your placement and budget. When you begin to figure out the right budget to achieve your desired placement, you can scale back your spending.
In addition, you may want to visit our guide for methods on how to lower your cost-per-click.
To use another analogy, your campaign’s quality score is similar to being a well-rounded student when it’s time to complete college applications. Your quality score is determined by:
With all of that said, here are some tips to follow to make sure that your campaign has an exceptionally high quality score:
Google offers more than seven Ad extensions to provide your prospects more information or ad formats, make your ad take up more room, and improve your ad rank. Extensions can undoubtedly make your ads look better.
In fact, with ad extensions, your ads can look like this:
You’re free to use as many ad extensions as you want. This will make it possible for you to showcase multiple sitelinks and CTAs. You can also use extensions to display call and location icons.
Finally, make sure that your sitelink extensions are written in title case to achieve the best presentation, and write callout extensions in sentence case. You also won’t need to use all 25 characters for callout extensions.
It takes a lot of work and tinkering to improve your PPC campaign and turn your budget into a revenue stream. If you don’t have the time or expertise, hiring a PPC agency is definitely in your best interest if you want to lead more people to your website.
At PPC.co, we specialize in running successful campaigns for all kinds of industries. If you want to take your campaign to the next level, contact us today to speak to a member of our team.
Facebook is undoubtedly the most preeminent social media network in the world. More than two billion people use Facebook. That’s nearly ⅓ of the entire world population. If you’re considering promoting your products and services, improving brand awareness, and driving sales and conversions, then Facebook is the perfect option.
Getting started with Facebook advertising is as simple as owning a business page and investing a few dollars into your first campaign to see what strategies will work best for you.
Though, if you’re new to Facebook Ads (or any other PPC advertising platform, for that matter), you may quickly figure out that attracting eyes to your campaign is simple. Convincing these complete strangers to show interest in your product and service and buy is a completely different obstacle.
But, it’s not impossible and you may find that improving Facebook Ads conversions is more straightforward than you originally thought.
To help you save and make more money with your budget, here are some very effective strategies to improve Facebook Ads conversions.
A conversion means something different to every business involved in marketing and advertising campaigns. If your audience is B2C, then a conversion may mean a sale or purchase.
If your audience is B2B instead, then you may consider a conversion of a new email list subscriber. In either case, conversions are valuable to your bottom end and considered to be a success, rather than impressions.
With that said, what is considered a conversion event in your campaign? In other words, what do you want people to do once they see your ad?
Facebook Ads support standard conversions, such as:
You also have the option to create custom conversion events, if you want your target audience to do something else. Don’t expect all of your ads to serve the same purpose. Therefore, create separate ads for different conversion events.
First, consider how your goals will fit into your buyer’s journey, and plan accordingly.
An ad’s success is ultimately based on the performance of its landing page. When you decide where your planned conversions will take place, make sure that your landing page has everything in place to be successful.
Here is everything you should do to ensure your landing page’s success:
Did you know that it only takes 2.6 seconds for a person’s eyes to scan a website page. Using eye-catching visuals is a great way to improve the chances of consumer eyeballs landing on your ad instead of somewhere else.
Generally speaking, your ad’s visuals will be either a great or horrible first impression. Therefore, treat your visuals like a first handshake by following these core principles:
Following these practices will help your ads stand out directly in front of your target audience.
Copywriting doesn’t have to be difficult. In fact, effective copywriting involves psychology and human nature more than prose. Writing jargon-filled essays won’t hold well with your audience.
Instead, strive to create crisp copy. Otherwise, your audience may not even read it. Here are some effective copywriting tips every advertiser should strive for:
Copywriting is all about communicating in a way that doesn’t make you appear like an unscrupulous salesperson. The more natural and concise your copy appears, the more willing your target audience will be to read it and convert.
The call-to-action (CTA) is the singular most important aspect of your ad. When a person is finished observing your ad’s copy and visuals, the next thing they may do is click on the CTA.
A CTA motivates someone to commit the action you want them to do. Therefore, they must be persuasive and dynamic. To do so, use strong verbs like explore, find, discover, and start if you want to direct potential consumers to visit a product page.
If you want to drive subscriptions and purchases, use more direct phrases like “sign up” and “buy now”. Creating the right CTA is a paradox. The best CTAs are both direct and clever.
As you can see, using “buy now” in eCommerce ads is a straightforward way to compel someone to buy something. It’s important to note that your CTA should not be doing all of the heavy lifting for your ad.
Your ad’s copy and visuals should explain what the offer is. The CTA should seal the deal. Therefore, don’t spend too much time trying to come up with flamboyant CTA phrases to inspire conversions.
Oftentimes, the simplest approach will work best.
When creating your ad, check the box for “target expansion”. This will allow more groups similar to your audience to be targeted by your ad. However, you must indicate the parameters of this feature in the “interest targeting section”.
Not only will this feature allow you to reach more people. You can also improve your conversions while reducing your cost per conversion (CPC). Make sure that you create custom audiences before continuing.
What’s more is that if you already have an email subscriber list or other data sets, you can integrate them into Facebook Ads to automatically find similar people on Facebook. You can take all of this work a step further and use custom audiences to discover lookalike audiences.
These are people who have similar demographics and profiles to your existing target audience. Audience targeting is essential in making sure that the right people are seeing your ads.
Naturally, if your ad is targeting the right people, your conversion rate will improve on its own. Luckily, Facebook employs a bunch of helpful features to aid in creating both broad and granular audiences.
This will ultimately help you to achieve laser-focused ad delivery and boost your conversion rate.
Facebook Ads has a bunch of settings that are obscure to many beginners. Some prefer to run their campaigns on autopilot, forgetting to make use of certain functions like this one.
In the Budget and Schedule section, under the “Optimization for Delivery” function, make sure to select the “conversions” option. This will automatically optimize your ads to prioritize conversions instead of traffic.
As you can guest, choosing this option is optional. Nonetheless, there are a lot of case studies that prove how effective this feature is. Save the Children ran a test campaign pitting both ads optimized for traffic and conversions against each other.
They wanted to find out which option would help spur the most donations. Interestingly, they found that ads optimized for conversions received four times more donations than the alternative.
This test was conducted by a non-profit organization. If you sell products and services, just imagine the type of results you can achieve. Ads optimized for conversions are modeled after Facebook’s organic algorithms to reach your desired audiences.
No one knows the exact manner in which Facebook “optimizes” these ads, but this option is well worth a try.
Specific Facebook ad formats may best suit your campaign needs better than others, depending on your goals. For example, Adidas conducted a case study showing that using video was the perfect format to unveil different visuals of their Z.N.E Road Trip Hoodie.
Because of this, Adidas reduced their CPC by 43%. If you want to achieve the same results, here are some key things to consider:
As you can see, setting up a successful Facebook ads campaign goes beyond creating ad copy and captivating images. Choosing the right ad format can position it to reach and convert your target audience.
Using the right ad format can also help you reduce your CPC by a considerable margin.
No matter where you plan for your conversions to take place, you should ensure that all your conversions can be tracked from desktop to mobile devices. This is helpful, especially if you want to drive traffic to a mobile app.
You can’t assume that everyone who visits your mobile app will download it, interact, and convert. Therefore, tracking potential customers to your mobile app is a great way to figure out if you need to make changes to your ad or your app.
Even if you don’t intend to drive traffic to your mobile app, you should still install Facebook’s SDK for your app. This will help Facebook receive more data about your audience and expand it for better results.
Once you run your campaign, you’ll receive analytical data about how it’s performing. Essentially, it’s up to you to determine what worked and what didn’t to make the necessary changes.
Take note of all of the analytics of your campaign and transform them into insights. Take what you learned from your previous campaign to elevate your next one. Not every campaign will be successful.
However, if you’re learning from your mistakes and willing to try new things, you’ll quickly figure out how to run a successful and affordable Facebook Ads campaign.
Running Facebook ads is a full-time job. If you’re busy running your business, you may find that you don’t have the time or expertise to manage your campaign. On top of that, your campaign may not be as successful as you imagined.
If that’s the case, then we can help. At PPC.co, we specialize in managing successful PPC campaigns. If you want to learn more about how we can help you, contact us today to speak to a member of our team.
If you have been considering Google Ads vs Facebook Ads, you probably wonder which one is better for your particular niche. Below is a close look at both types of Facebook Ads or google ads so you can make an informed decision.
And when the time comes to manage your Google ads campaigns, it’s important to select the best ad management services to obtain the best ROI.
You’ve seen both ad types mentioned when you go into Google or Facebook Ads, but how do they operate?
Both advertising platform use a PPC or pay-per-click model. When you make advertisement on either platform, you go into an auction where you type in a bid for how much you want to spend on ad/ad spend space. Next, you’re charged a certain sum every time a person clicks on your ads/Google ads. Easy, right?
It’s essential for making your marketing decision.
Google Ads is a paid search advertisement method, for the most part. This means that you pay to have your ad listed on the Search engine results page for Google.
When you do a paid Google search campaign, your advertisement is served to searchers based on targeted keywords rather than by target audience. However, you can alter your campaign settings in paid Search engines/Google search to target a specific audience based on geographic location and other particulars.
However, Google Ads isn’t just about paid search; you also can serve your ads on:
On the other hand, Facebook Ads provides you with paid advertising. As Facebook has changed its algorithm settings, particularly for Facebook retargeting, it’s more complicated than ever to get your products in front of customers organically.
This is where your paid social campaign comes in. With Facebook Ads, you pay to get your ads/google ads in front of customers on major social networks rather than them finding you organically.
As you may know, Facebook isn’t just putting ads on your newsfeed. Some other channels that you can advertise are:
Now that we’ve covered the basics of these two advertising channels let’s compare them.
Google and Facebook have massive audience reach. Google gets almost six billion searches per day, and Facebook boasts about 1.8 billion daily users.
Mobile advertising on Facebook makes up almost 90% of the company’s ad revenue. However, mobile advertising isn’t the only method that you should try.
Usually, your target users/audience spends time on both Google and facebook ad/Online advertising platform, so you cannot determine which platform is ideal for you based only on audience’s size.
So, ask yourself, how is your target audience effective on these networks? And is your product oriented towards Google search or social?
Even if Google gets six billion searches per day, it doesn’t help you if no one is looking for your product there.
Have you released a new, exciting product? Have people heard about it? If not, then Facebook Ads could be the best option for you for now.
Cost is another significant consideration; the average cost-per-click on Google Advertising/|Google Ads is $2.70, but this varies widely by industry.
It can range from $2.46 for auto to $6.75 for legal services. Also, note that the most costly search term in Google Ads today is ‘insurance’ for $54 per click!
Facebook can be a bit cheaper per click than Google. For example, a company in the apparel local businesses could pay only .45 per click on Facebook. Insurance and finance are more expensive, but the typical CPC is only $3.75.
Also, Instagram feed advertisements are almost double the cost of Facebook ads/Google ads.
CPC is often pricier on Google Ads, remember that people clicking each Google or facebook ad could be further along in the purchase cycle. Facebook ads excels at building awareness, but Google Ads may be better at reaching the user when she is ready to buy.
But CPC is only part of the consideration. Another factor to consider is CPA or cost per action to determine if you have a sufficient ROI for your Google or Facebook advertising campaign.
CPA varies by each campaign you start. It depends mainly on how well you targeted each campaign and if you can convert a lot of viewers.
Wordstream has put together average CPA for most industries to give you a benchmark for how your Facebook or Google ad is performing.
The average CPA for all Facebook advertisements is about $18.75. It can range from $44 for auto to $12 for healthcare to $55 for technology.
Again, Google Ads will cost you more than Facebook Ads, but Facebook Ad management is typically more expensive. The typical CPA in Google Ads is $49 for search and $75 for display. This can range from $34 for auto to $72 for education to $133 for technology.
Regarding buyer intent, Google Ads usually beats Facebook Ads. Think about the type of business you have. Do your potential customers search for products or services when they are ready to buy?
For instance, if your car’s air conditioner breaks, they will start looking for car AC repair services. Google Search ads would put your company in front of customers exactly when they need your Google’s local service ads.
But that person won’t repair that AC repair business in six months that they saw on Facebook. Google wins here.
Facebook Ads are not as effective at getting leads to become sales quickly. Most people go to Facebook to hang out and socialize, not to shop. But this robust platform is critical for building an audience over time. If you can create a feeling of community around your company on Facebook, people are more likely to buy when they need your product.
If you want to create brand awareness for your company, Facebook wins.
To decide, you need to ask yourself some questions.
First, think about the goal of your campaign. Do you want to make sales fast? Then Google Ads is probably for you this time. But if you want to grow brand recognition or reach a vast audience, Facebook Ads may be the choice.
Next, think about your industry. B2B and B2C companies use free Google Ads with great success. But Facebook Ads may work better for B2C companies, especially for people selling less pricey products and services; consumers are more likely to buy these products impulsive after they see them two or three times.
Also, your audience matters. Do people look for your firm with the idea to buy today? If so, Google is the right choice. But if you want to build a new audience, then Facebook will fit you better.
There are so many factors that will influence the success of your Google Ads campaign. Many people believe that by throwing dollars at their campaigns, they’ll start to work better and outperform their competitors.
Others believe in targeting the low hanging fruit to lead more website visitors to their website. While both strategies are effective, reaching as many qualified prospects without sacrificing your marketing dollars is the true way to grow your campaign.
Are you wasting money on irrelevant impressions that aren’t leading to conversions for your business? If so, then you may want to consider creating a negative keyword list in Google Ads.
Below, you’ll learn what negative keywords are, how they can impact your campaign, and how to create the perfect list.
A negative exact match keyword is a relatively simple concept. It’s basically a keyword that you don’t want one of your ads to show up for. Naturally, you’ll want your ads to show up for as many keywords as possible, despite its search volume and competition.
Many people believe that covering a lot of search volume in their campaign will help it grow and yield to more conversions. The opposite is actually true. Efficient campaigns can both save and make you more money.
Here’s an example — let’s say that you want to target people looking for “men’s athletic gear”. You already have a landing page and you don’t want to ruin your ad quality score by targeting irrelevant keywords/negative keyword.
Also, you don’t want to waste money on clicks that won’t mean anything. So, you add negative keywords “women’s running shoes”. This way, you aren’t wasting money, and your campaign is hyper-focused on your real target audience.
These are negative phrase match keyword, and they have been used since the dawn of Google Ads. In addition, they are still used in both marginal and expensive campaigns.
Using exact match negative keywords isn’t like turning on a setting that will optimize your campaign and save a few bucks. Likewise, creating a list of negative keywords for your campaign isn’t even optional.
Creating a list of negative keywords is an essential part of any campaign, because it provides all of the following benefits:
As you can see, there is no reason to ignore setting up a list of negative keywords for your campaign. Below, you’ll learn a few effective ways in finding negative keywords for your campaign.
Finding negative keywords isn’t as simple as it sounds. In fact, it’s pretty time-consuming and tricky. When creating your negative keyword list, begin by discovering keywords that are similar to your target keywords, but may cater to people who are looking for an entirely different product or service.
This includes keywords that relate to products and services that can be mistaken for your target keywords. The first step in finding negative keywords for your campaign is seeing what types of search terms are prospects using to find your ads in the first place.
By using Google’s search term report, you can identify the specific keywords people are using to find the ads in your campaign:
This report can list high-performance keywords that are generating meaningful traffic for your campaign and website. It can also show you irrelevant/negative keyword that aren’t synonymous with your products or services.
As such, these keywords should be added to your negative keyword list. If you’re ambitious, there are other ways to identify negative keyword opportunities. For example, you can perform a manual search for them using Google search.
To begin, create a list of 10 target keywords you’re bidding on. Go to Google and search for these keywords. What shows up? Do you see any paid search results that are irrelevant?
Why are these results irrelevant? Let’s use an example for the negative keyword “heater repair”:
Let’s say that residential HVAC companies are showing up for this keyword. Here are some things to consider:
Once you have your list of keywords, adding them to your campaign is pretty simple. If you ran a Google search terms report, you can:
Alternatively, you can add negative keywords manually by:
Creating a negative keyword list in Google Ads isn’t too difficult. However, if you’re running numerous campaigns, the task can be a bit too tedious and time-consuming. This is where we come in and help.
At PPC.co, we specialize in delivering top-notch PPC management services. When you call us, we’ll set up a list of negative keywords and create a more productive campaign for your business.
Contact us today to speak to a member of our team about your PPC campaign.
If you’re new and experienced in using Google Ad’s, the most exciting part of building a new campaign is keyword research. With your budget readily available, you’re searching for the most potent keywords, while trying to keep your competition, volume, and marketing spend balanced.
However, Google has for years denied releasing specific information about certain keywords. This makes it almost impossible to plan for using organic keywords, and it creates a level of uncertainty that shouldn’t be present in a campaign you’re spending money on.
Though, it’s very possible to turn these lemons into lemonade, so to speak. Below, you’ll learn how to use “not provided keywords” to maximize the impact of your Google Ad’s campaign.
To put it simply, not provided keywords are instances where Google has chosen not to share organic keywords data with you. Clearly, people are using these keywords, but Google will not provide you with any analytical information about them.
The reason not provided keywords exist is to protect the privacy and interest of internet users. Similarly, you will also see keywords (not set), and this also means you won’t be able to understand vital keyword data.
The “not set” connotation simply means that Google won’t reveal any search traffic for that keyword. In 2010, Google revealed that they would no longer provide organic keywords data in order to better personalize search queries experiences based on user behaviors.
These changes have been enacted due to the widespread interest of protecting user privacy.
Not provided keywords aren’t the end of the world for advertisers. In fact, if you can’t see core data for specific keywords, you’ll need to find other metrics to determine if Google is sending high quality traffic.
Many advertisers will still bemoan not having enough data from not provided keywords, which can prevent them from creating a relevant landing page, improving their ad quality score, and increasing your conversions and ad revenue.
Actually, if you perform a search queries for the not provided keyword, you can view the top landing pages. These landing pages will point directly to the organic search intent, or the reason why a person is searching for the keyword in the first place.
Clearly, if Google has ranked any landing pages high for particular keywords, it means they are fulfilling the needs of its internet users. So, you can look at the landing pages for not provided keywords to get an insider view of what a standard internet user is looking for.
Thus, you can use a basic keyword research tool/web analytics tools to receive data on how well a landing page performed. While this data won’t be exhaustive, it’ll give you a greater idea of how your landing page will rank if you target the same keyword:
Nonetheless, it would be beneficial to receive granular information about not provided keyword’s instead of landing pages. This is where using normal Google Search Console comes in handy:
There is a way you can bypass this caveat from Google. Ironically, this loophole can be found with another tool from Google. You can start by linking your Google Ad’s to your Google Analytics account.
Then, you’ll link up your Google Analytics to your Google Search Console data. By associating these two platforms together, you’ll be able to see organic Search Console information in insight reports from Google Analytics keyword.
You’ll also be able to access these reports directly from Google Search Console.
Obviously, if you want to improve your Google ranking, not being able to measure vital keyword data can become an issue. However, there are more pressing issues to consider, such as:
As you can see, not provided keyword’s aren’t going to significantly impact your Google Ad’s campaign. As a matter of fact, there are a lot of ways you can use them to improve your campaign as a whole.
Not provided keywords can actually benefit your campaign Below, you’ll find some effective ways to use not provided keywords to your advantage.
Using not provided keywords is not difficult, but relying on a PPC agency is the best course of action to improve your bottom line.
Do you need help in improving your Google or other search engines Ad’s campaign? If so, then you’ve come to the right place. We specialize in running successful PPC campaigns for all kinds of clients.
We employ the most advanced tools to find meaningful keyword data. Do you want to learn more about how we can help? Contact us today to speak to a member of our team about moving forward.
Thousands of so-called Google Ads experts will all tell you something different about choosing the right ad rotation setting. Some will tell you that you’ll need to optimize your ads for clicks and let your copy and visuals do all the talking.
Others will proclaim that you should instead optimize your ads for conversions instead and let your landing page do the hard work. In reality, there isn’t a definite answer to which is the better ad rotation settings.
Depending on the goals of your campaign, audience, and even your landing page, your choice could differ from the rest. Nonetheless, you can still make the costly mistake of selecting the wrong ad rotation settings.
Do you want to avoid this mistake?
Here’s how you can, complete with the full pros and cons of each ad rotation setting to help you make the best decision.
If you’re new to Google Ad, aren’t careful, or simply don’t know what you’re doing, then you’ll ultimately leave your ads on this default ad rotation settings. Unfortunately, this can cause you to learn absolutely nothing from all but one of your ads.
At a first glance, Google Ad isn’t clear about how this ad rotation settings works. Though, its concept is very simple. When you run your campaign and it goes live, Google will handpick the ad that’s performing the best.
Then, it will show this ad to your audience 99% of the time. This means that the other ads in your group won’t receive any visibility. To “optimize for clicks” means to place the best ad in your campaign in the front lines of your audience to achieve as many clicks as possible.
Pros:
Advertisers can get lucky and Google will present the ad that’s actually designed to convert most of your target audience. Thus, you can improve the ROI of your campaign and actually save a lot of money in the process.
Cons:
What will usually happen if you select this option is that one of your ads will receive more clicks than the others. Over time, you’ll see your ads receiving more clicks and attention, which is what the setting was designed for.
Experienced Google Ads experts will tell you that receiving clicks isn’t an effective way to measure the performance, success, and ROI of your campaign. Conversions are all that matter to a Google Ads campaign.
A lot of newbie advertisers choose this setting and expect their ads to run with minimal supervision and interaction. That leads us to the next setting.
Likewise, ads that are optimized for conversions utilize conversion rates and click-through rate (CTR) and position the ads that are more likely to generate conversions.
Naturally, this seems like the better option. In some cases, it is. But, here are some important considerations you should be aware of.
Pros:
If you have an ad that’s performing very well, Google will handpick it and improve the performance of your entire campaign. If you don’t have a lot of time to devote to your campaigns, then this is the closest set-it-and-forget-it option you’ll ever encounter.
Your chances of success are much higher when you choose this option, mainly since your ads will be designed to convert rather than attract.
Cons:
When you select this option, your campaign will likely receive fewer clicks. If there isn’t enough conversion data, then your ads’ presentation will depend on its CTR, which will select the first option by default.
You can also run the risk of spending a lot of time on your ads that won’t even be shown to your target audience. Worst of all, you may not even receive suitable data that will help you analyze and optimize your ads for better performance.
Before you choose this option, you need to determine if you value reliable text analysis.
If you’re torn between choosing either option, these are your final two alternatives. You can choose to rotate your ads on both settings evenly. Basically, Google will gather data on which option is best to cycle between both for maximum results.
When you choose the other option, your ads will rotate for an indefinite period of time.
Pros:
Choosing this option is what veteran PPC experts do. It will allow you to constantly test your ads and gather sufficient data to make effective, real-time decisions. When you allow your ads to rotate evenly, you’ll have the freedom to optimize, create, and work on your campaign to ensure that the best ad will be presented.
After 90 days, Google will make the decision to showcase your best ads to achieve as many conversions as possible. This will result in a heightened ROI for your campaign.
Cons:
If you lack the time to manage your own campaign, then Google will basically run ads that aren’t effective. Choosing either of these options will depend on you paying more attention to your campaign.
Therefore, if you don’t have the time or don’t wish to manage your campaign, these options aren’t for you. When running a Google Ad campaign, there is no such thing as a set-it-and-forget-it rotation setting.
You’ll need to be heavily invested in your campaign in order for it to work. Otherwise, you’ll lose hundreds and even thousands of dollars and won’t even realize it. Hiring an experienced PPC agency (after first firing your current agency) is in your best interest if none of these rotation settings are ideal.
When you’re spending money on every click, you’ll want to ensure that you’re getting the most return for your spend. That’s where hiring a PPC agency comes into play.
If you’re like most people, Google Ad is a troubling maze. You’re hesitant to waste your money, but you know how successful this platform can be for your business. If you want to explore the possibility of improving your campaign, then we’d love to talk with you.
Contact us today to speak to a member of our team for more information.
If you’re here, then you’ve probably heard of pay-per-click (PPC) advertisements. These are ads that appear on major platforms, such as Google and Facebook. Since billions of people use search engines and social media networks every day, placing high converting ads on these platforms is a no-brainer.
Local businesses rely on PPC ads since consumers are more likely to conduct a Google search to find a nearby business. If you’re a chiropractor, there are a lot of areas to cover to help you better understand Google Ads and create a profitable campaign for your practice.
Below, you’ll find a complete Google Ad’s guide for chiropractors & chiropractor ppc services.
If you’ve ever used a search engines, then you’ve seen a PPC advertising. They’re actually positioned right at the top of a search engine results page (SERP) after browsing a keyword.
After searching the keyword, “Chiropractor Los Angeles”, you can clearly see PPC advertising at the top of the SERP:
Your practice can receive a lot of exposure just by being positioned at the top of SERPs for popular keywords that are searched by hundreds and even thousands of people. To achieve this ranking, you’ll need to bid or pay for the keywords you want to rank for.
This is the entire concept behind creating PPC ads. You will be charged every time someone clicks on your ad, whether they visit your practice or not. Therefore, there is definitely a risk to investing in PPC ads.
How can you be certain that your money will be well spent on PPC ads that will rank and attract new people to your practice? The answer is more straightforward than you think.
Unfortunately, thousands of PPC campaigns fail everyday. Unlike digital marketing campaigns/SEO Compaigns where you may only waste a few hundred dollars on the wrong agency, you can potentially waste thousands of dollars in failed campaigns.
This makes a lot of chiropractors hesitant/chiropractic practice to rely on create PPC ads for their businesses. In reality, a successful ppc campaign can double and even triple your ppc budget. Creating a productive campaign for your practice isn’t too difficult.
Let’s use the previous keyword as an example. Here is why these two listings sit atop the SERP for the keyword, “Chiropractor Los Angeles”:
As you can see, these ads are visually appealing, eye-catching, and display all of the information you’ll need to not only visit the landing page but also call the practice to schedule an appointment.
Successful Pay Per Click advertising is detailed but concise. They’re also informative but optimized with high-performance keywords. To start creating a success Pay per click campaign for your practice, you’ll need to first choose the right keyword’s.
These keywords will direct meaningful search traffic back to your landing page where they can convert.
Google Keyword Planner is the native keyword research tool for Google Ad’s. Google Keyword Planner allows target audience/users to select from thousands of possible keyword combinations and analyze their data:
With Google Keyword Planner, you can check the average monthly searches for keywords. This simply means you can browse how many people are searching for a particular keyword.
If you bid for a popular keyword, then there’s a chance you can attract a lot of eyes to your ads. With that said, you can also take a look at the competition of a keyword. This is how difficult it will be to rank for a keyword based on a myriad of different factors.
The most prominent factor in determining the competition of a keyword is valuing its average monthly search website traffic. Popular keywords are obviously more competitive because a lot of chiropractors are already bidding on them.
This means that you can’t put all of your eggs in one basket and only target popular keywords. Not only will you overrun your PPC budget, but you’ll spend a lot of time and effort trying to outrank a competitor who is likely spending more money than you and working with a reputable PPC agency.
By targeting both popular and low-traffic keywords, you can attract more traffic with less effort. Lastly, Google Keyword Planner can help you see how much you’ll pay for a keyword.
Google keyword prices fluctuate constantly. Therefore, Google displays these prices in quartiles, or simply a top and bottom price. This range can still help you create and stay aligned with your budget.
Once you have selected your keywords, it’s time to configure your campaign to attract the most clicks and conversions.
Modifying a Google Ad’s campaign for the first time can be challenging because you’re trying to figure out what everything means. Luckily, there isn’t a lot of configuration that takes place before your campaign goes live for the first time.
What makes and breaks a Google Ad’s campaign is the adjustments you make after your campaign goes live. In any case, here are some considerations when adjusting your campaign:
If you’re new to Google Ads or tired of wasting your money on worthless campaigns, we can help. At PPC.co, we specialize in creating successful Pay Per Click(PPC) campaigns for chiropractor and other professionals.
Contact us today to receive a free proposal to start your campaign.
Keywords play an essential role in the success of your digital marketing campaigns. Online marketers have to consider their target audience when carrying out keyword research and then incorporate the results into their content strategies.
This is important because 53.3% of all website traffic comes from organic searches. Your website won’t be served to those using the search engine if your content doesn’t include the right keyword and key phrases/phrase match keyword.
Similarly, finding the right keywords is important for the success of your paid ad campaigns as well. Google Ads allows keywords match types to be set on the keywords, which are parameters that decide the triggering of your PPC ads. With these parameters, Google provides control to advertisers on the PPC ads and keywords.
Read ahead to see what keywords match types are and their importance in online marketing.
A keyword match type is a Google AdWords keyword option that delivers an ad on Display Network and Google Search Network. According to the keyword option you select, the ads are shown to either a special user group or a broad target group.
However, the keywords are quite generic and broad to ensure that you factor in for the maximum number of users.
When you select a PPC keyword match type, you ask Google to match your ads to the user searches in a particular way. For instance, an exact match can be too specific and picky, while a broad one will show many user searches that may not apply to your product or service and therefore be of no use to you.
The keyword match type integration of your choice helps the algorithm decide the platforms where your ads appear. As a result, you can target the right and more specific audience. In addition, the keywords match type you select determines the relevancy of the presented ad and the search keywords.
Match type and keyword selection both help to target people when they search in Google. With this match-type option, you can use all the available matches and get a high return on investment for your PPC ad campaigns.
It is essential to understand the different match types and execute a combination of them to help you create an effective Google Ad campaign. You can avoid irrelevant keywords, which will help you save the budget that you can use to drive more conversion rates.
Your keyword match types ensure you get the most value from your PPC advertisement budget. The four main PPC keywords match types determine how a search query matches your Google Ads account keywords. These include phrase match keyword, Broad match keywords, Exact Match, and Modified broad match keywords.
With a proper understanding of each of these match types, you can choose the most suitable one for your campaign to improve your ROI ultimately.
Your keywords are assigned a default type which is the broad match. This lets search engines display your ads for terms that are your account’s keyword variations. Your ads can be displayed on searches with synonyms, related searches, misspellings, other relevant variations, and singular or plural forms.
This casts the widest net possible, bringing in all kinds of searches to show your ad. However, it is essential to realize that broad match keywords can waste PPC’s budget when it displays your ad on irrelevant keyword variations.
For instance, if you own musical instruments with a good variety of acoustic guitars at an Orange County shop, your selected keyword will be “Acoustic Guitar Orange County,” and Google can interpret it for the following search matches:
When you use the broad match type, you can end up paying for results or search terms that are different from the keywords you bid on, resulting in the Iceberg Effect. As a result, you can overpay for irrelevant search topic ads and have minimal control over the search terms your ad is displayed for.
If you want to generate the maximum traffic for your landing page, a broad match keywords is beneficial. However, you can get lost in the vast amounts of irrelevant terms that show up in your search term report, which will be of no use since you want to attract potential customers.
A broad match generally generates many clicks for your website, but not all of them are from your targeted audience. The chances of conversion are significantly less, resulting in high ad costs with less ROI.
A broad match is a good option for your ad campaign if you cannot create in-depth keyword lists. If a particular ad gets no clicks on some keyword variation, your ad will no longer be displayed by Google’s system for that search term. As a result, the click charges will decrease for your low-performing keyword variations so that you can spend more on relevant keywords.
You can use negative keywords with phrase and broad match keywords, as the addition of negative keywords helps increase targeting, improving your ROI when you use the broad match. This means that when you designate a negative keyword, Google can never display your ad when that term is used in a search.
Use a minus sign with a keyword to create a negative keyword and clock a significant amount of irrelevant traffic. But know that this will limit your reach.
This is a more trustworthy and responsible version of the broad match type for your Google Ads budget. It acts as a moderation between the broad type and other restrictive match types. In addition, it allows you to pick specific search terms that should be in your ad for it to be displayed.
Add the plus sign with one or more words and create your broads match keywords. These appear in a user’s search in no specific order. Broad match modifiers give more control and visibility over how you spend your ad budget than the broad match type.
Furthermore, broad match modifiers are safer with a greater click-through rate (CTR) than broad matches. This happens because synonym or related search keywords do not trigger your ads.
This match type gives a range of searches with helpful keywords that you had not previously considered, but that still have the potential to trigger your ad. With a modifier like the plus sign in your broad match keywords, your ad traffic’s relevancy increases as they generate highly targeted traffic.
It is best to use this match type to increase your impression count and decrease the irrelevance the broad match generally gives.
Phrase matches are keyword match types that eliminate the unnecessary and risky traffic that the other match types produce. With the phrase match keywords type usage, when someone searches for your keyword phrase, your ad is displayed in the search results in proper order.
Unlike broad match or modified broad match keywords, phrase match keywords does not have search terms with the middle words of your phrase. Phrase match is also a better option when your keyword’s meaning changes with the order of terms. It ensures that your keyword is displayed in the order that you choose.
Phrase match type has better flexibility than an exact match keywords which makes it so important, and it also lets Google show more discretion than the broad match types. Furthermore, since you don’t have to follow exact match, you can enjoy the phrase match’s wide audience. However, you can expect irrelevant traffic here as well.
Phrase match keywords is essential to maintain the word order and ensures that you reach the correct searchers. As a result, a specific keyword of your choice has increased traffic, and your ad budget is better focused on more relevant traffic.
There will be a difference between the traffic volume that broad match and phrase match bring to your site. However, phrase match keywords does get higher-quality traffic with more conversions using a more niche-targeted ad, which makes up for the lesser traffic.
The most restrictive PPC keyword match type is the exact match keyword type since it restricts the display times of your ad. So while this type gives you the most relevance, it provides the lowest reach to your ad.
It would be best to use the exact match keywords type when you want to serve your ad for a particular keyword. With an exact match keywords, you can choose to show your ad to only those customers who search for that same keyword or one that is closely related to it.
These closely related terms include misspellings, accents, abbreviations, stemming, singular and plural forms, recorded with the same meanings, conjunctions, and prepositions. Again, you can create an exact match keyword type with brackets around a specific keyword.
Such match types lower your ad’s traffic and generate fewer clicks or impressions than other match types. However, exact match keywords generates highly targeted traffic with the maximum conversion chances because users search for the exact term you have created your keyword around.
Additionally, exact match keywords help increase your Quality Score because of lowering the search term-to-keyword ratio. This match type has ads that create the most click-through rates but at the greatest cost-per-click.
The exact match type can help to decrease your overall costs because you only pay for fewer targeted clicks. However, it is also essential to note that you also risk missing helpful keyword-related traffic with the further inability to get long-tail data.
It is essential to choose the right PPC keyword match type for an effective PPC strategy. There are four match-type keywords that you can select for your campaign, depending on which one fits your needs closely.
Since the match type decides the extent to which a search query matches your keyword in the Google Ads account, you have several options to choose from. These include Broad, Broad Modifier, Phrase, and Exact match types, where each of these has its pros and cons, making them optimal for various types of campaign goals.
In any case, keyword match types play an essential role in online marketing, and marketers and advertisers must use them for effective marketing campaigns.
We are a PPC management agency with a focus on direct and white label PPC clients. Whether you own a single online-focused business or are a new online marketing agency, contact us today to get started!
Although there are many ways law firms can generate quality leads via digital marketing, PPC (pay-per-click) marketing remains one of the most effective.
PPC campaign is particularly useful as a means of generating leads quickly and efficiently.
Keep reading to learn how. This overview will cover the essentials of PPC for law firms, helping you better understand the role it can play in your overall marketing strategy.
PPC campaign involves placing Google ads on relevant sites and search result's pages via an online ad platform. Every time a potential lead clicks on your ad, you pay the host of the ad platform. You’ll typically launch an ad or campaign by bidding on keywords related to your firm. For example, you might bid on a keyword (or phrase) like “car accident law firm Brooklyn, NY.”
Google and search engines in general tend to be among the most popular choices of Pay Per Click advertising platforms ad platforms for a simple reason: they allow you to reach leads whose searches align with your products or services. With a solid PPC campaign plan, you can be confident the people seeing your PPC ads are likely to be interested in the services your law firm offers.
It’s critical that you avoid certain common mistakes when leveraging Successful PPC campaign to help your firm attract more clients. Too often, lawyers treat as being separate from their other channels. Or, they may rely solely on PPC marketing, not realizing it’s only a component of a strategy.
Any law firm can benefit from PPC marketing to some degree. However, this method is very useful when your firm is relatively new and in the early stages of growth.
A strong PPC marketing strategy will help your firm quickly attract new leads and spread brand awareness when you’re just starting out. In the long run, your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy will help you maintain the momentum PPC marketing initially generated.
Studying your PPC marketing results will also help you plan an SEO strategy that delivers results. Because SEO vs. PPC marketings involves bidding on keywords and placing PPC ads that will theoretically feature various types of copy (you should always A/B test ads to learn what types of copy, images, etc. leads respond to), you can study the performance of individual Google ads and overall campaigns to determine which keywords and copy attract the most attention from leads.
PPC campaign essentially complements SEO marketing in this way. You can take what you’ve learned from your PPC campaigns and apply those lessons to your SEO strategy. Specifically, when you know which keywords and copy make the strongest impression on your target audience, you can incorporate them into your titles, meta descriptions, calls to action, and website content, optimizing your PPC & SEO based on a genuine understanding of what does and does not work.
PPC campaign can also be useful if your law firms has any PR problems. No one needs to tell you attorneys can face bad PR for plenty of reasons. Not all of them are good reasons. Regardless, negative articles and mentions of your firm can make attracting leads a lot more difficult than you’d like it to be if those articles and mentions show up high in relevant search engine results pages (SERPs).
This highlights another major benefit of PPC Campaigns. PPC advetising will appear in the paid results for relevant keywords searches on SERPs. If you’ve used what you’ve learned from studying your PPC campaigns to guide your SEO, your site pages are also more likely to show up in organic search results. Together, they’ll push the negative press towards the bottom of the page, ensuring leads are less likely to see it.
This combination may even push less than flattering articles off the first SERPs entirely. Ideally, that’s your goal. Research shows that the first page of search results typically accounts for 71 to 92 percent of clicks. The second page? Only 6 percent. Push that bad PR to the second results page, and its impact on your business will be minimal.
The best way to start experimenting with PPC marketings to drive your firm’s growth is by launching a paid search campaign with Google AdWords. An effective paid search campaign will place your Google ads on Google SERPs when leads conduct searches using the keywords you’ve bid on.
Again, these keywords should be related to your services and target audience. If you’re trying to attract more clients who’ve been injured in pedestrian accidents in Miami, you might bid on such phrases as “Miami pedestrian accident lawyer,” “Miami pedestrian injury law firm,” etc.
(Tip: Be ready to adjust your strategy as you learn which keyword strategies yield the most clicks. Test different approaches and monitor their performance vigilantly to ensure you’re focusing on the most valuable keywords as you adjust and enhance your strategy.)
Launching your campaign involves the following key steps:
When launching a campaign via Google, choose the Search Network Only option and enable all features. Google will prompt you to make these choices when you first start designing the campaign.
You’ll have the option to turn on location targeting. This is to ensure your search ads will generally only reach users in a particular geographical area. Unless your law firms has many offices across various regions and cities, it’s highly likely you’ll benefit from using this feature. You can use the Let Me Choose tool to target users by a specific city or radius. Select People in My Targeted Location with the Location options (advanced) feature as well.
Bidding is the next component of planning a paid search campaign. AdWords will provide an automated bid strategy based on your PPC budget. As you run your campaign, AdWords will automatically adjust your bid to maximize conversions while staying within your budget.
You should probably stick with AdWords’ automated strategy until you have more experience launching paid search campaigns. Odds are you’re reading this because PPC marketings for law firms is a relatively new concept to you. When you’ve spent more time measuring the results of your campaigns, you may be more confident in your ability to design your own bid strategy. Right now, you’re still experimenting.
Google AdWords also gives you the option to include “extensions” in your ads/campaigns. Extensions serve to boost click-through-rates and conversions by including additional information in your ads.
The following are extensions you should consider using:
At least for your first campaign, you should create ads groups for individual keywords. For example, you would create an ad group for “Miami personal injury lawyer” and a separate ad group for “Miami car accident attorney.” Each ads groups should feature PPC ads that target exact matches (when a user query exactly matches your chosen keyword/phrase), phrase matches (when a query contains your keyword), and broad matches (when a query features keywords that may be a variation on your chosen phrase, such as “car accident lawyer in Miami”).
Creating individual ads groups for each keyword may seem tedious and costly. However, in the long run, the benefits will justify how much time and money you’ve devoted to this task. When you have individual ads groups for individual keywords/phrases, you can more closely study which keywords yield results, and which don’t. Over time, this helps you optimize your budget and bandwidth by focusing on the keywords with the most value. If you create ads groups based around multiple keywords, you may not be able to determine which keywords were actually responsible for driving clicks and conversions.
Keep in mind there are also multiple ways to incorporate your chosen keywords into ads. You can incorporate them into headlines, URLs, and the overall ad description. As always, monitor their performance to identify the most effective strategies.
Your work isn’t over once you’ve created your PPC ads and launched your campaign. Now you need to monitor its performance in the following key ways:
Google AdWord's offers a search term report which tells you which search term's result in your PPC ads being displayed on SERPs. The report will also tell you whether the keywords used in queries were exact matches, variations, close matches, etc.
Regularly check the search term's report to learn which keywords and phrases are delivering the strongest results. This report can also let you know when you should stop focusing your efforts on a particular keyword.
After monitoring the performance of your campaigns for a few weeks or months, you should have a sense of which ads are most valuable.
Your next task involves creating new versions of your top ads. Based on what you’ve learned, make changes to the copy, headlines, and other elements that you believe may improve an ad’s performance.
Launch these new versions along with your existing top ads. You can now monitor their performance to help you refine your ads to an even greater degree.
Remember that. There’s usually always room for improvement when launching and adjusting a PPC marketing campaign for your law firm. The more you learn, the more you’ll understand about what does and doesn’t work. You can also adjust your bid strategy when you reach a certain level of expertise.
Setting up and launching an effective PPC campaigns requires knowing what to do right, while also knowing what you could be doing wrong. You’ll be more likely to see optimal results from the start if you avoid these key mistakes:
Except in specific circumstances that warrant doing so, you typically shouldn’t send users to your homepage,landing page or even a service page when they click on an ad in your ads groups. Instead, ads should have landing pages.
Homepages/landing page and service pages can feature far too many distractions. These often limit conversions. With a dedicate landing page featuring limited or no navigation options to minimize distractions, testimonials to build trust, and a call to action, you’ll be more likely to convince a lead to take a certain action.
Tracking conversions is key to measuring your return on investment. However, you have to track conversions properly.
Luckily, tracking conversions the right way doesn’t need to be a major challenge. It involves two simple steps:
Just as you should monitor keyword and overall PPC performance and make adjustments accordingly, so too should you monitor your location targeting to determine when changes need to be made.
For example, you may find that certain areas within your radius are irrelevant in that leads are rarely found in these areas. In this case, you can go to the Locations tab for a given campaign via Google AdWord's and click Add to add specific locations within a given radius. You can then choose to exclude those locations to further optimize your targeting.
Again, PPC marketings is a valuable component of a law firms marketing strategy, but it’s just one component. The more you experiment and test the suggestions provided here, the more you’ll appreciate how PPC marketings can complement your other channels. The result? A thriving law firms that consistently attracts clients.
We do PPC management services for law firms as well as law firm SEO. Get in touch today!
Google Ads will attempt to pair your advertisements based on the keywords you’ve placed a bid on. However, let’s say that you’ve placed a bid for “men’s basketball shoes”.
Depending on the keyword match type setting you select, there’s a possibility that your ads can show up for the keyword, “men’s Nike shoes”. This is the purpose of the broad match keyword type.
Sometimes, this is the best setting you can choose for your campaign. If you’ve decided to use this setting, this article will explain all of the best practices you should follow to ensure your Google Ads campaign is a success.
Broad match keywords let Google Ads know that your ads should show whenever someone searches for any variation of the keyword you’ve provided.
As a result, if someone searched “women’s running shoes”, your ad could also show up because the ad text includes “running shoes”.
This is crucial to remember: Google Ads will treat this search query as though they typed in exactly “women’s running shoes”.
So, what does This mean? Broad match campaigns are often the most difficult type of campaign to grow. Even if someone does search for one of your exact keywords, there’s always a chance they’ll include a misspelling or different verbiage than what you’re targeting.
Broad match keywords are the answer to fixing a lot of PPC visibility issues. By specifying additional keywords and phrases within your keyword, you can further define what a potential customer looks like.
Let’s look back at our running shoe example: If we only allow broad matches for “women’s running shoes”, we might not show up for someone who searches for “black women’s running shoes”. Using Broad Match Modifier would allow us to include additional keywords such as “black” or “lace-up” in order to be visible for these types of search queries too!
Additionally, while it may seem redundant to target a phrase that exactly includes your primary keyword, there are successful campaigns that follow this strategy.
Broad match keywords can be useful for ensuring that your campaign is visible for a bunch of different keyword variations. Essentially, you’ll be getting the most bang for your buck, even if you’re bidding for a select few keywords.
So how should you decide whether or not to use broad match modifiers? When it comes down to it, you don’t have to choose. In fact, most people don’t even know about the broad modifier options until they’re in the campaign setting up their ads. If you want to make sure that your ads run with modified broad keywords as well as exact-match keywords then just leave them checked off!
If you want more control over your ads and are interested in creating a highly specific audience for your campaigns (e.g., women’s athletic shoes between 5-10 sizes), then turn this feature off.
Broad match keywords aren’t for everyone. The main disadvantage to allowing this setting is that ad visibility isn’t everything. Just because your ads are showing up for several different keyword variations doesn’t mean more leads will convert on your landing page.
In fact, if your ad shows up for irrelevant keywords, you’ll not only be decreasing your ad quality score, but you’ll also waste a lot of money. This can be frustrating when you notice a lot of people viewing your ads, but no one is converting.
If you have created a landing page for a specific product, it’s probably best to turn off this setting and direct your attention to more focused keywords that are relevant to your campaign.
When it comes to using broad match keywords, the task isn’t all too difficult. Below, are some helpful tips to consider when using this setting in your campaign:
If you’re serious about reaching a broad audience, start by performing in-depth keyword research. The best practice is to create new campaigns for each group of keywords.
For instance, if your goal is to reach both women and men who are interested in investing in stock market portfolios, create two new campaigns based on your initial keyword list that contains relevant keywords specific to each audience.
When creating separate campaigns, remember to use the ad groups feature so you can manage your unique key phrase lists as efficiently as possible. Be sure to only include exact match keywords in each campaign or ad group.
This will allow Google’s system to better analyze which ads are most effective with this type of search query since exact match queries have been manually triggered by searchers looking for keywords that are semantically the same as the ones you’ve placed a bid for.
Once you’ve set up your campaigns, it’s time to create a list of negative keywords.
These are the words that trigger irrelevant ads from appearing when someone searches for them. They also help narrow down bids and save money as you won’t bid on meaningless queries in the first place.
By creating a list of negative keywords, you can avoid the disadvantages of broad match keywords, which are usually your ads appearing for irrelevant searches.
Once you’ve created your list of negative keywords, don’t assume it’s complete.
As people search for terms that would trigger irrelevant ads, add them to the end of your list. Remember, these are single words so make sure there are no other variations on the word (i.e., “point”, “pointers” and “pointer”).
This way you’ll be syncing up with what your end users want as time goes on.
Adding new words will also help prevent unnecessary spending. After all, money is not being wasted when ads aren’t triggered by searches that aren’t relevant!
Do you want to learn more about how we can improve the success of your Google Ads campaign? If so, then you’ve come to the right place. Contact us today to receive a free proposal for your campaign and get started.
Google Ads is a great advertising platform, but it can be difficult to manage all of the different campaigns that you have running.
One strategy that will help simplify your workload is setting up shared campaign budgets. This article will show you how to set up and use this budget type in Google Ads so that you spend less time managing your campaigns.
This feature may also be beneficial if you’re running multiple Google Ads campaigns and need help automating the management process.
Let’s get started!
The Shared Campaign Budget feature allows multiple campaigns to contribute towards one shared budget. Google will allocate a proportional amount of your total campaign spend across all linked campaigns based on each campaign’s performance in the previous period.
The feature makes it easier to manage several campaigns at once, usually during A/B testing sessions when you want to find the most profitable campaign from the rest of the bunch.
It’s a great way to optimize your campaigns and save time.
For example, if you have three Google Ads campaigns that are all performing well across the board, then using this feature can be an excellent way to allocate your marketing spend in order to maximize profits.
Using this feature offers the following benefits:
If you’re running multiple campaigns in Google Ads, then the shared campaign budget is an excellent feature that will allow you to simplify your workload.
This article will show you how to create a Shared Campaign Budget in Google Ads and what are some of its benefits.
One of the most common uses is when companies are conducting A/B testing sessions because it offers one simple way of managing multiple tests at once without needing additional work from you other than inputting a few numbers into the system.
The ability to use automatic allocation means less time spent micromanaging budgets which free up more time for optimization and other important tasks.
You should avoid this feature when you’re running campaigns with vastly different budgets.
For example, if one campaign is generating $100 and the other will generate $1000 in a period of time, then it would be better to let Google Ads allocate the budget for both campaigns instead of using shared campaign budgeting.
If your campaign is similar to what we just described, it’s best to manually adjust the budget of your campaign. If you still lack the time, it’s best to hire a PPC agency for the job.
Fortunately, using this feature is quite simple in Google Ads. Just follow these steps to get the job done:
And, just like that, you’re all finished. While this process is simple to carry out, hiring a PPC agency to make this change may be in your best interest. Continue reading below to find out.
The answer to this question depends on your budget and company size. If you’re working with a small business or don’t have the time, then hiring an agency is worth it for these reasons:
If you need help running a Google Ads campaign but lack the experience, skillset, or equipment necessary to do so effectively, outsourcing may be a better move than using the shared campaign budgeting feature.
So, you’ve decided to hire a PPC agency to enact the shared campaign budget feature or just run your Google Ads campaign? If so, you should familiarize yourself first with the benefits of making this hire.
These benefits include:
The PPC experts you hire will have the skills and experience necessary to get your campaign up and running.
In addition to handling things like keyword research, report analysis, and account management, professional agencies also know how much money should go where in order for a campaign to be profitable.
There are many features that might not seem intuitive or easy at first glance in Google Ads such as location targeting options which is why an agency has familiarity with them all when it comes time to decide what’s best for your business’ needs.
An agency will know how to set up conversion tracking, integrate Google Ads with other marketing channels and platforms such as social media or email marketing, and make the most of remarketing strategies.
A PPC expert from an agency is assigned exclusively for your account so you’ll never be alone in managing it which means that they’re more likely to stay on top of things like keyword research and competitive analysis than if they were just working with one client at a time.
PPC agencies often have access to 24/hour customer service lines where their experts are available to answer questions before, during, or after hours when other companies might not be able to provide this level of support.
A PPC agency can help with keyword research which is often the most difficult and time-consuming part of any campaign.
PPC agencies have access to tools like SEMrush, Google Ads Editor, keyword tool suggestions from Google Search Console, or Bing Webmaster Tools that you might not be able to get on your own.
They also know how best to analyze reports in order for them to provide useful information about what’s going well and where improvements are needed in a timely manner without ever being too late.
We take pride in being one of the most well-known PPC agencies in the United States. If you desperately need to turn your ad budget into more revenue for your business, then we can help.
We have more than a decade of PPC management experience. When you choose to hire us, we’ll put a dedicated account manager and a team of professionals to manage your campaign and ad spend.
We realize there are dozens of PPC agencies in your area to choose from. Many of them will claim to offer the best PPC management services for your company. At PPC, we prioritize providing exceptional benefits to our clients, which include:
We’re always on top of the latest PPC trends so that we can take full advantage of them for your business.
Reports are a critical part of any successful campaign and they should be detailed enough to provide information about what’s going well with your account, as well as where improvements may need to happen in order for you to achieve your goals.
It’s important to have an expert review everything before moving forward which is why our free consultation service allows you to get advice from one of our experienced professionals without having to spend too much money just yet.
You’ll get a return on your investment every time you work with us. We make it our priority to give clients the best possible ROI for their advertising dollars which means getting them as many conversions and leads at the lowest cost-per-acquisition that we can manage.
We have a team of professionals who are experts at keyword research, so they’ll be able to help you select the right keywords for your campaign.
The budget is something that often gets overlooked when it comes to PPC advertising which is why our agency will work with yours in order to create campaigns and ad groups within your set restraints without ever wasting money on anything superfluous.
PPC agencies are experts in ad copywriting which is often the most important part of any successful campaign. We strive to provide amazing copywriting services to ensure that your ads are engaging to your target audience.
We have more than a decade of PPC management experience. We’ll take the time to get to know you and your business so that we can provide our expertise in an area where it’s needed most, without ever being too late.
More importantly:
We have a team of specialists who are willing to work with you in order to help save time.
It’s important for any business owner or manager to try and find ways of saving as much time as possible, which is why we offer PPC management services that will get your account back up and running quickly so you won’t be wasting money on ads that aren’t performing well.
You’ll want to know how your campaign is performing so that you can make adjustments accordingly.
We offer a variety of tracking services that will help you in making decisions about the future of your account, and it all starts with one simple consultation from our team today.
We are committed to providing our clients with money-saving PPC techniques that will get them the most ROI for their advertising budget which is why we run campaigns vigorously with a watchful eye, so you’ll never waste time or money.
As your business grows, you’ll want to scale up so that it can keep up with the demand of an increased number of customers.
We offer a variety of options for scaling our campaigns which means we’re able to work within any budget and grow at any pace that is necessary without ever missing a beat or wasting money on anything superfluous.
It’s not always possible for businesses to hire an in-house team of PPC experts, which is why it can be a money saver to work with our agency.
When you partner with us, we’ll take care of all your current campaigns plus provide consultation on future projects so that you don’t have to worry about anything other than what comes most naturally: running your business and making decisions based on the data from one campaign.
We offer impeccable ad creation services which will ensure that every aspect of your ads is focused directly on your target demographic while also engaging them enough so they click through onto the landing page where conversion rates will be higher because their interest has already been piqued.
Wading through the murky waters of PPC can be a time-consuming and confusing process, but not with us.
Our team has more than ten years of experience in the industry which means you won’t have to waste any valuable hours learning how to do it yourself when we’re happy to help.
Do you need help turning on the shared campaign budget feature in Google Ads? If so, contact us today to speak to a member of our team to see how we can help.
There are a lot of factors that can affect your PPC advertising, but the most common one is seasonality. If you’re not familiar with what this means, it’s when there are certain times of the year where people buy more and other times when they don’t.
This affects how often someone clicks on an ad or visits a website during these different seasons. In this article, we’ll go over some tips for adjusting your ads to be successful in all four seasons.
Seasonality in PPC advertising is when there are certain times of the year where people buy more. Certain seasons have higher conversion rates and can be a great opportunity to get your ads noticed by potential customers.
There are three main effects seasonality will have on your campaign: cost per click (CPC), quality score, and conversions.
They all vary during different seasons because people are not all looking for the same things at various points in time, especially if they live somewhere that experiences four distinct seasons.
For example, let’s say that you’re selling boots. It wouldn’t be a stretch to assume that more people will be interested in these products in the fall and winter months. However, people buy boots all year long.
By adjusting your PPC ads based on the seasonal influx of your products, you can ensure your ads are profitable year-round.
Analytics is a crucial tool in measuring seasonality. If you’re not already using analytics to measure your campaigns, this is an excellent starting point for understanding how changes can affect traffic and conversions.
You should use Google Analytics or another third-party program that has this feature set up on your website so that it’s easy to see fluctuations during different seasons. You’ll need to go into the Conversion section of Google Ads under Acquisition > Google Ads Campaigns & Keywords > Search Funnels » All Conversions » Channel Groupings.
This will help you scout the trends between different products in various months. Following this step is the first phase of determining whether or not you need to slow down, ramp up, or pause any campaigns in different seasons.
You should also be looking at the performance of your campaigns in previous seasons. This will allow you to see which types of ads are more successful during different times and if any changes need to be made for a new season.
There are many things that can help ensure success throughout all four seasons, such as adjusting bids, adding negative keywords, or even using retargeting techniques so people don’t forget where they left off with an abandoned shopping cart on your site.
The text in your ads can be a big help when adjusting for seasonality. Text is often the most important part of an ad, which means you should use seasonal copy that will work best during different seasons.
For example, if you’re selling Christmas decorations and want to advertise them as holiday gifts on social media, then it would make sense to create posts with “Now Available!” or “Cyber Monday Deals” messages.
In contrast, if someone was looking for something like furniture sale items in January (a time where people are less likely to buy), they might not find the message helpful at all because there isn’t much urgency behind it.
You can also try using messaging such as “Summer Sale!”. This subtle change will make all the difference in attracting more eyes to your ads.
It’s also important to look at what your competitors are doing with their ads. You can’t have a successful campaign without knowing what is currently generating the most traffic and conversions, so it makes sense to see which of those techniques you need to implement as well in order for your business to thrive.
For example, there might be an increase in conversion rates when using coupons or discounts during certain seasons.
You could also use negative keywords that target seasonality-specific products (such as snow boots) by excluding them from campaigns where they’re more likely not going to perform well (i.e., summer months).
This way, you’ll only pay for clicks on relevant searches instead of wasting money on irrelevant ones throughout all four seasons. Your competitors may be employing these techniques, so it couldn’t hurt to spy on them and figure out for yourself.
It’s also important to decide on a PPC budget for each season, which you can adjust as necessary based on metrics.
You should have an idea of what your break-even point is in order to know how much money needs to be made before ads stop being profitable. This will help give you more insight into where your marketing efforts are best allocated and if any adjustments need to be made throughout different seasons.
Depending on whether or not sales are up during certain times of the year due to seasonal influxes, this could change by adding or removing keywords from campaigns that may no longer perform well with lower traffic levels (i.e., Christmas decorations).
One thing to keep in mind before adjusting for seasonality is whether or not you have a team of people who can help with the work.
If there are employees available, then it might be worth delegating some tasks so that they know what needs to get done and when their input will make a difference.
For this reason, it’s in your best interest to work with a reputable PPC agency to save a lot of time in doing all of this work yourself.
Adjusting your PPC campaign for seasonality is a relatively straightforward process, but it’s best to hire a PPC agency to ensure that this work is done correctly. With that said, do you want to learn more about how we can help?
Contact us today to speak to a member of our team about configuring your PPC campaign.
If you’re an experienced digital marketer, you’ve probably heard about Facebook and Google Ads. These are the two most popular PPC advertising networks on the internet, but they’re not your only options.
There are many other alternatives to consider before relying solely on these giants of online marketing. In this article, we will be discussing seven alternative PPC ad networks that can help you get more traffic to your website without paying high fees and avoiding tough competition.
There are several reasons why you may want to consider other PPC networks other than Facebook and Google, which include:
The LinkedIn ad platform offers a self-service solution, which starts at $0.30 per click and goes up to $25 for the right service plan.
LinkedIn ads can be effective for lead generation because they are more targeted than other PPC networks with large audiences such as Facebook or Google Ads, so you will get fewer irrelevant clicks.
You also have access to demographic information on your potential customers that these other advertising platforms do not offer.
For example, their job title is important if you’re selling business services! LinkedIn’s audience might not be huge in comparison to some of the others we’ve mentioned here but it has high conversion rates due to its targeting capabilities and personalization features like company pages where users can only see content from companies.
Twitter is a fast-growing social network with an audience of over 300 million active users. It’s also the most popular mobile platform in the world!
That means it has tons of potential customers you can reach for free and easily as long as they’re on Twitter, have liked your company page, or followed you. You’ll always see more engagement from followers than people who just happen to land on your website through Facebook Ads or Google Adwords.
Ads are easy to create: you can use templates provided by Twitter that contain all the text required by law such as age restrictions for alcohol products and credit card listings; this saves time when creating these ads quickly.
Yahoo! is the second most popular search engine on the internet, so you know it should be high up your list of considerations when choosing what PPC networks to use.
There are two types of Yahoo! Ads: text ads and image-based display ads that can include video. You won’t have any trouble locating them because they’re prominently displayed at the top and bottom of every page.
The pricing for these services starts from $0.05 per click with volume discounts available in case you want more clicks than just one or two thousand a day and will need to pay higher fees as a result; this service also allows advertisers to change bids for keywords hourly if their strategy changes often (and quickly!).
Bing ads have a few things going for it that other PPC networks don’t:
YouTube Ads are the perfect option for video marketers, influencers, or anyone who wants to share their message with a large audience.
You pay only when someone clicks on your ad and you can also use TrueView ads which charge advertisers based on how many times an ad is viewed rather than paid views.
This means that, unlike other networks where you have to spend more money to get a better spot in people’s feeds (like Facebook), YouTube has it all figured out: just make an awesome marketing video and let Google do the heavy lifting of figuring out what will work best without breaking the bank!
Video creators looking for new ways to monetize their content should consider this as well because there is no risk involved when trying these services.
Instagram is the largest photo-sharing app in the world! That means you can target a huge number of potential customers without needing to do so much leg work.
It’s also great for targeting audiences since it has a variety of different features that allow users to narrow down their search by demographics, location, and interests (think “Millenials who love coffee”).
What makes Instagram really stand out from other companies though is its new ad service: sponsored posts.
These are full-fledged marketing campaigns where brands pay publishers – bloggers or influencers with large followings on social media such as YouTube channels or Facebook groups – to post an advertisement for them and share information about your product/service in exchange for free products and services.
Taboola is a recommendation engine, not an ad network. Taboola displays content in the form of widgets that are personalized to each user’s interests on publisher sites such as Yahoo! News and The Huffington Post (among others).
The service also has its own e-commerce platform where advertisers can set up product feeds for automated delivery via email or RSS feed – meaning you don’t have to post it yourself every time there’s something new available.
You’re only charged when someone clicks on your widget which means this might be the perfect option if you want to switch from Facebook Ads.
Managing your PPC campaign isn’t easy. To learn more about how we can manage your campaign’s success, contact us today to speak to a member of our team.
If you are a marketer trying to drive traffic to your website, using PPC campaigns can be an effective way to do it. However, what if the goal of your campaign isn’t just about driving traffic?
What if you want people who come onto your site and convert into customers or leads for your business?
If that is the case, then conversion funnels may be the perfect addition to your strategy! In this article, we will discuss how marketers can use conversion funnels and other techniques in their PPC campaigns.
Conversion funnels are a series of steps that someone follows on their way to conversion. While the end goal remains constant, the path is different for each user because it depends on what they click or do while browsing your site and which content draws them in more.
The key to a successful conversion funnel is presenting users with value at every level, from emails and landing pages, all the way through to social media posts. By constantly providing people with new information or opportunities to take any action related to your business you will create trust and interest over time as well as make sure they’re getting maximum usefulness out of your marketing efforts.
There are so many different benefits to using conversion funnels for your PPC strategy. Some of these benefits can be found below:
Using a conversion funnel also decreases the likelihood that visitors who just want a single piece of content will bounce away from your page before converting (which is costly). This also reduces your campaign’s bounce rates on particular landing pages by increasing conversion rates by funneling people down the correct paths in order to achieve what they came here for. It also sends traffic back up the marketing chain too and refines leads until they’re ready to purchase.
The first step in using a conversion funnel for your Google PPC campaign is defining its goal. To put it simply, what is the purpose of the funnel? What do you want the funnel to do?
You need to know what you want visitors coming from ads or social media posts on Google and other channels. Do they want more information about a topic? Get an email subscription so that they get all the latest content sent to them when it’s released?
Sign up for your newsletter in order to receive weekly updates with new blog post ideas? You don’t have much time after someone clicks on one of your paid advertisements before their attention drifts elsewhere, so make sure what you offer matches up with their expectations.
The next step in creating a PPC conversion funnel is figuring out what you want visitors to do when they land on your site. You might offer a series of short blog posts that explores the topic in-depth or provide free downloadable content such as an ebook, white paper, infographic, or checklists.
In order for people visiting from ads and social media posts to take action on your website—whether it’s signing up for more information about a particular topic or filling out a lead form so you can start the sales process with them—you need to optimize these conversion points.
Finally, when creating a conversion funnel for your PPC campaign, you should create the funnel that will convert best for your product or service and optimize it to meet your goals.
Fortunately, a conversion funnel is pretty one-dimensional. This means it can be easy to find issues with your funnel and repair them immediately. When repairing your conversion funnel, you should follow these essential tips:
Often, the best way is to split up the different aspects of what they’re trying to do into separate parts for them, such as by phone number so they don’t have to fill out form information twice.
Simply get their contact info first. Then ask about specific details later on if they are interested in receiving additional information from you at some point down the line.
This will help increase conversions because it’s less work for customers while giving marketers an opportunity to promote other products or services within this one without having any overlap with each offering.
The old way of selling was to offer as many different products and services separately as possible.
The new way is conversion funnels, which take a customer’s needs or desired outcome into account from the very start. They’re more focused on what customers want rather than having them fill out all their information for your product first before they can see any other options you might have available. It also helps marketers make more money with PPC because it ensures that every visitor converts within the funnel – if not at one stage then another!
For example, if someone comes in looking for an apartment but doesn’t end up signing anything by clicking off after viewing a few properties, conversion funnels will show them other ads that are relevant.
Overall, conversion funnels will keep leads on a flywheel until they’re finally ready to convert. This means your campaign can make a lot of money if it’s successful in attracting leads.
Do you want to learn more about how we can help you grow your PPC campaign? Did you know that we do white label PPC management for agencies? If so, contact us today to speak to a member of our team and receive a free proposal.
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Google Ads, formerly known as Google Adwords, has an immense reputation among entrepreneurs, high-ranking executives, and business owners. You simply open an account, create an ad, and run it live.
The only caveat is that you’ll pay for every click your campaign generates, whether the person behind the click visits your website or place of business and converts or not. This is certainly a risk proposition, but if you execute your campaign properly, you can generate more attention and revenue for your business, much more than your ad budget.
To make matters better, Google allows advertisers to easily locate popular keywords people use to find local businesses and shop for online products. This tool is called Google Keyword Planner.
It’s been used for decades by advertisers, and while there are certainly other keyword research tools available, Google Keyword Planner is still useful. Below, you’ll learn what Google Keyword Planner is, why it’s important, and how to use the tool to achieve success with your campaign.
Google Keyword Planner is a keyword research tool that’s native to Google Ads. The tool allows advertisers to perform research on search terms consumers use to find businesses.
Google Keyword Planner lists an exhaustive number of keywords that are relevant to your industry in the following categories:
As you can see, Google Keyword Planner provides a lot of insightful data that can help you choose suitable keywords to bolster your campaign. It’s an invaluable tool for advertisers to turn popular keywords into conversions.
A lot of advertisers resort to using their own imagination when selecting keywords for their campaign. Some barely glance at Google Keyword Planner and others rely on external keyword research solutions.
If you’re here, then you’re likely to ask “why should I even give Google Keyword Planner a chance?” Here are all of the benefits of choosing to use Google Keyword Planner for your campaign:
Using Google Keyword Planner can make or break your Google Ads campaign. The good news is that Google Keyword Planner is a very simple tool to use. Below, we’ll show you the steps for finding keywords and creating lists using the tool.
The first step of using Google Keyword Planner is knowing what type of data you want to receive. When opening the tool, you’ll be presented with four options:
If you’re new to creating a campaign, you’ll need to select the first option. Then, you’ll be able to insert a sample keyword to find other relevant ones. For example, if you’re selling men’s athletic gear, you can try using the keyword “men’s running shoes” to see which search terms people are using to find this product.
Google Keyword Planner will showcase thousands of different keyword combinations you can choose to add to your campaign. Once you add a keyword to your campaign, you’ll automatically place a bid on it.
Thus, it’s important to review the third and fourth option first to see how much search volume a keyword is bringing in and how much you expect to spend in the long run. If your campaign is already running, you can experiment with the second option to consolidate multiple keyword lists to achieve maximum exposure.
At first, Google Keyword Planner looks like an intimidating tool. After all, it shows a lot of important data for your campaign. If you’re willing to devote the time and resources to mastering the tool, using Google Keyword Planner is a great idea.
However, if you want to instead focus on running your business and simply don’t have the bandwidth to invest in Google Ads or Google Keyword Planner. The obvious reason is that you’ll be charged an amount for every time a person clicks on your ad.
If you just run your campaign and forget about it, you’re bound to lose hundreds and even thousands of dollars in the process. To avoid making this costly mistake, partner with a reputable PPC agency today to explore your options.
Elevating your Google Ads campaign will ultimately depend on the PPC agency you hire for the job. Are your Google Ads not showing? Perhaps, you’ve had your Google Ads account suspended?
At PPC.co, we specialize in helping companies fix their broken ad spend and turn wasted opportunities into lucrative conversions.
Contact us today to speak to a member of our expert keyword planning team about receiving a free proposal for your campaign.
To run ads on search engines like Google, you place bids for your ad to display in particular search queries. In other words, you compete with other advertisers for a keyword. But did you know that you can also compete against yourself without knowing it? It’s called keyword cannibalization.
Before your ad competes with others in an automated keyword auction, an internal auction between your own keywords/relevant keywords takes place within your Google ads account. Google search needs to know how your ads rank among each other before it can rank them among ads by other businesses targeting the same keyword.
Because we live in an age of infobesity, where everyone overloads the amount of information on the web in an attempt to rank on top, it’s easy to fall victim to keyword cannibalization without realizing it. To help you avoid it, this article will go over what exactly keyword cannibalization is in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, why it’s bad, its 3 different types, and steps you can take to avoid it.
In PPC advertising, keyword cannibalization refers to when you have two or more campaigns targeting the same search query in search results/pages ranking. In other words, you have multiple ads competing for the same keyword or two or more pages. It’s considered “cannibalization” because it’s as if you are taking a “bite” out of your own ad margins and results.
Search engines like Google search/ search engine results page automatically show the ad they deem most relevant based on its ad rank. Typically, ad rank is calculated by multiplying the maximum cost-per-click (CPC) bid with the ad quality score (ad rank = max CPC bid x quality score). When you have two or more separate ads competing for the same keyword, it splits your results. Your click-through rates (CTRs), links, and content are split across multiple ads.
Of course, it’s only keyword cannibalization if the intent behind the multiple pages/multiple ads is the same—to direct leads to a particular landing page etc. If you run different ads that share a keyword but have different goals, this is not keyword cannibalization (though you might consider consolidating your ad campaign goals).
Keyword cannibalization is nearly always unintentional. Essentially, you’re asking the ad platform’s algorithms to rank your competing ads. Often, one ad has higher ranking signals than another and will win the ad space. However, if there is no clear winner, none of the ads will rank as well as they might have, ruining each other’s ability to perform.
Keyword cannibalization cripples your PPC campaign. As your ads compete for the same keyword, the flow of traffic generated by them is broken. An ad might match for a keyword one week and not another, and you may see dramatic fluctuations in traffic. More importantly, keyword cannibalization leads to rising CPC costs, decreasing conversions, and diminishing page authority. Basically, it causes you to serve worse ads at a higher cost.
There are 3 types of keyword cannibalization in PPC: keyword overlap, geographic overlap, and PPC-SEO overlap. We’ll explain all three in detail so you can understand what you’re up against.
So far, we’ve explained keyword cannibalization in terms of keyword overlap. Keyword overlap refers to when two or more of your ads target the same keyword. In many cases, you may have an ad group targeting multiple keywords/multiple pages, one of which unintentionally overlaps with a keyword in another ad group. Usually, one ad outranks the other and it may not even be the one you most want to show. So make sure you organize your ad groups carefully.
In PPC campaigns, you not only bid on keywords but on geographic areas. And unfortunately, overlapping geographic areas can also cause keyword cannibalization. For example, if one of your ads targets a city and another targets that city’s entire country without excluding the city, you end up with two ads that target keyword for the same city & multiple urls. Or perhaps you run PPC ads for two stores in the same area with overlapping radiuses. In both cases, you unnecessarily pump up the ad auction with your own ads. Plus again, the winning ad may not even be the one you most want to run.
Finally, your PPC traffic can overlap with organic traffic. Organic traffic refers to any visits to your website that you don’t pay for. So if a regular search on Google leads someone to your web page, it’s considered organic traffic. You can increase your organic traffic through search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. If you already rank high in search engine results pages (SERPs), spending on PPC ads will have diminishing returns and may even be a waste of money. You’re already ranking in the SERPs, so paying to appear in the promoted results section has diminishing returns. Plus, some users prefer clicking on organic results over sponsored results anyway.
Now that you know the different ways keyword cannibalization can harm your PPC campaign, let’s go over what you can do to avoid it happening to you.
First, you want to extract as much data from your PPC campaign as you can. Run a keyword report to uncover any of the overlaps already discussed. In Google Ads, you can do this by viewing the search terms report. Here, you can review your keywords closely and find out which keywords are driving your ad traffic.
Try targeting your ads only to exact-match keywords/same keywords. Cross-include any exact matches as negative keywords in unrelated ad groups first. And if exact-match keywords generate the traffic you want, leave out broad-match keywords altogether. In other words, make sure traffic generated by broad-match keywords is not already being served by exact-match keywords. Otherwise, you’re paying for two ads to do the job of one. The same goes for Dynamic Search Ads (DSA). Add targeted keywords as negatives in DSA campaigns and block any keywords that overlap.
As for PPC-SEO overlap, decide whether you want to rely on organic traffic or not. Experiment with switching off individual keywords. Wait and see how much organic traffic you get for the keyword and compare it to when you had paid traffic. Also check if competitors are targeting your keywords to gain insight on the level of competition in organic traffic, CTR, keywords, search volume, and so forth. This way, you’ll know what you’re up against if you decide to eliminate PPC-SEO overlap by dropping ad spend.
Examine how conversions change week to week and identify trends so you can adjust accordingly. PPC advertising is a matter of trial and error. The faster you learn what works best, the better.
After you’ve diagnosed keyword overlaps, do all that you can to avoid them in the future. Don’t target plurals for keywords and always check keyword spellings. Google will match close variants of keywords, so a plural or a misspelled keyword could easily lead to keyword overlaps. If you have a lot of keywords, try using a tool to identify close variants faster.
Avoid overlaps in geographic targeting by excluding cities from country targets if running ads in both. Check target radiuses as well to ensure there is no overlap. The last thing you want to do is pay twice for the same target area.
Avoid splitting PPC traffic across multiple web pages/multiple pages by maintaining a one-stop authoritative web page that links to other web pages that fall under the same keyword. Try using 301 redirects to link pages of lesser importance to a single definitive version & avoid wrong page also keyword stuffing.
Finally, avoid keyword overlap by concentrating your ad spend on one keyword instead of many. That way, you not only don’t spread your ads too thin but you ensure that they don’t work against each other.
With brands trying to dominate the SERPs, the risk of keyword cannibalization occurs has only increased. So it’s more important than ever to keep a close eye on your PPC campaigns. If you don’t, you could be wasting valuable ad spend and not even realize it. Fixing keyword cannibalization early on will not only lower CPC costs but increase your conversions and ROI.
If you need help auditing or managing your PPC strategy or fix keyword cannibalization, ppc.co can help. Our skilled experts will quickly identify where to optimize and make improvements, so you can start getting the most out of your PPC campaigns. Contact us today to get started managing your PPC campaigns.
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising has a 200% ROI, and yet many businesses do not get the full advantage of this Digital marketing strategy because they fail to use effective call to action . In fact, 70% of small business B2B sites lack CTAs.
If you want a high click-through rate (CTR) on your PPC ads, you’ll need to craft irresistible call to action. In this article, we’ll go over what PPC call to action are and give you 12 tips on how to make them stand out.
In marketing, a CTA is any language that invites readers to do something. Whether it’s signing up for a newsletter, viewing a website, or making a purchase. Without CTAs, a landing page leaves a potential buyer hanging, without direction on where to go next. That’s why CTAs are so crucial. They turn casual browsers into potential leads and customers. Any marketing effort involves writing the perfect CTA Button.
In pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, CTAs are what drive the click-through rate (CTR). They are what get users to click on the ad. CTAs go hand in hand with PPC. So they need to be compelling.
There are 3 broad categories of CTAs in PPC: those that invite user engagement, those that generate leads, and those that encourage a direct response. Which you use will depend on your ad campaign goals:
No matter which type of Call to action/(CTA Button) you’re after, following some basic guidelines can make them more effective. So without further ado, here are 12 tips on writing the most effective PPC calls to action:
Call to action need to be simple and clear. Tell people exactly what clicking the ad will do. In other words, what you want them to do, e.g. “buy now.” Remember PPC ads have a strict character limit, so you need to make every word count. You can’t afford to be vague or unclear.
Always write digits for numbers as this reduces character count and the time it takes to read the ad, e.g. “24” instead of “twenty-four.”
We recommend sticking to just one 1 Call to action – (CTA Button) line per PPC campaign. That way, your CTA buttons are not competing against each other and your campaign has a clear goal & desired action for the users.
Every Call to Action should get the user to do something. So use strong verbs that convey action. call to action examples, “skyrocket your ROI on SEO marketing Materials” sounds a lot better than “read SEO insights.”
Use words that tap into users’ emotions. After all, people buy with their emotions first, then rationalize their purchase later. This is true even for B2B customers. Try to make them enthusiastic about trying your product by using exclamation points, e.g. “Buy now for 50% off!” If your Call(CTA) is enthusiastic, users are more likely to be.
Creating a sense of urgency motivates users to act. If they feel like the offer is limited, they’ll think it’s now or never. So consider advertising a limited-time sale, offer, or promotion to get their attention. This way, you take advantage of their fear of missing out (FOMO), a powerful motivator.
You might even contrast with something negative, like “stop eating junk and transform your life with an easy diet proven to work by thousands.” Appealing to users’ negative sentiments, like their bad eating habits, is risky and may not always work. But it can be a powerful way to incite action.
Show that there is value behind every Call to action, e.g. benefits, bonuses, or return on investment (ROI). Otherwise, users don’t know whether clicking on the ad is worth their time.
Draw on a unique selling point (USP). Maybe you can offer a free consultation or a free trial. Such offers communicate value to the user by showing what’s in it for them. If it can’t show value, your Call to Action won’t generate clicks. Simple as that.
Say what your business does and the results you get, while keeping it at a high level. This will intrigue customers and make them want to learn more. You don’t want to give away too much, but just enough to spark interest.
Leave cliffhangers. TV shows have mastered the art of cliffhangers to get viewers to keep watching. As humans, we need closure. The same goes for Call to action-(CTA Buttons). Make a promising claim without giving all the details and users will want to learn more.
Humans have an urge to belong. We want to do what we see others doing. Call it the bandwagon effect, following the crowd, or peer pressure. Whatever you call it, it’s here to stay, and your Call to action can leverage it by citing influencers or celebrities, e.g. “Try Lebron James’s work out routine for $10/month.” You can also cite recommendations, endorsements, reviews, and ratings. Together, these are considered “social proof.”
Social proof is the future of marketing. As the modern world becomes more connected, people place more and more value on the opinions of others. Try including social proof for your product or service in your CTA to make it that much more irresistible.
What keeps many from investing in a new product or service is risk. People don’t want something to turn into a waste of time or money. So your CTA should show that they have nothing to lose. Do this by offering a free trial, a money-back guarantee, or no-obligation quote. Users feel more at ease when they know what they’re getting into.
Offering a low-priced or free product in hopes of gaining a new customer is called the loss leader strategy. By marketing a product below its value, you stimulate interest. Then once the user is hooked, you can increase the price. The user will feel more comfortable paying more once they’ve experienced the product’s real value. It’s a win-win.
The internet makes us impatient. We want instant information and gratification. Your Call to Action can tap into this by showcasing instant delivery, e.g. “Get a free demo now.” By including the word “now,” the Call to Action implies that the user won’t have to wait for a benefit. The reward for clicking on the ad will be immediate. This way, you’ll increase your click-through rate (CTR) and generate more leads.
Make your CTA highly relevant to your target audience. It could be masterfully crafted, but it won’t do you any good if it’s targeted at the wrong people. For instance, asking regular consumers to buy B2B software is unlikely to generate much response. You need to match the Call to action to the intended customer.
You can also personalize the Call to Action by drawing on shared interests or using a casual tone. Users want to connect with you before engaging. One way to do this is by writing in the second person. The pronoun “you” implicates the reader, making them feel involved. For call to action examples, “buy the hot tub you deserve” is more appealing than “buy a hot tub.”
Consider the words users type into search engines when looking for your product and tailor your Cal to action(CTA) accordingly. If their searches include action phrase like “free,” “best,” or “near me,” you’ll want your Call to action to reflect that. Try writing “free SEO tool” or “best SEO tool,” for instance.
PPC ads display differently depending on the device. Mobile devices have smaller screens, for call to action examples, so ads have to be smaller. Keep this in mind when crafting CTAs for a mobile audience. Plus, mobile users are usually searching for a quicker answer. So make mobile CTAs short and to the point and try offering an instant solution. You might also enable call extensions for mobile CTAs. That way, clicking the ad automatically triggers a call to your business phone number. When you do this, make sure to set the PPC campaign preferences to only show ads to mobile users. Otherwise, users on other devices will be left at a dead end when clicking your ad.
As for PCs and tablets, search engines, including Google, consider them the same when it comes to PPC ads. Since tablets have only slightly smaller screens than PCs, you don’t need to worry about altering your CTA much between tablet and PC users. Both devices, and PCs especially, allow users to research more easily, so you might leave CTAs that require more time to this audience.
Success with PPC advertising is a matter of trial and error. Perform A/B tests to see what CTAs work best. Call to action examples: you can test different CTA button placements and colors. Generally, the CTA button color should contrast with the blog post & web pages/landing page background color. Test different CTA wordings, word orders, and lengths. The amount of variation is endless.
Though A/B testing different CTAs can be time-consuming, it’s worth nailing down the best one because it could make a huge difference in clicks, conversions, and revenue.
Of course, there are some pitfalls to avoid when crafting the perfect CTA. If you can avoid them, you’re guaranteed to improve your click-through rate (CTR). Here they are:
Having a sensational call to action can make the difference between a failed PPC campaign and a successful one. If you implement the tips above, you can dramatically increase your click-through rate, conversions, and sales.
Need help managing your next PPC campaign? Our experts at ppc.co have over a decade’s worth of experience in everything from Google and Facebook Ads to landing page optimization. We specialize in optimizing your return on ad spend. You name it, we can help. Get in touch to start scaling your business today.
Is your company intrigued by capturing additional Web traffic? Then you may want to think about deploying dynamic search ads (DSAs). DSAs can snag traffic from unique searches that can net your company more sales opportunities.
No matter how successful your marketing is, using DSAs can turbocharge your advertising and fill in where your other efforts are flagging.
Below is a brief tutorial about Optimize dynamic search ads for beginners to help you get started in this productive marketing space.
DSAs are advertisements that show based on the content your site has. Here’s how it works: Google crawls your website and provides matches to search terms related to your content.
Next, the landing page and headline are automatically created to match that term. This means the search term, ad, and landing pages are more related to one another. The intended result: a higher likelihood the prospect will be motivated to visit your site and purchase.
Creating Dynamic Search Ads – Step By Step
You create DSAs in Google Ads with these steps:
After setting up your DSA dynamic ad targets campaign, you can decide if and how you want to remarket it. You have two choices:
Here’s how you do it:
There are two critical performance categories you should review before you start your DSA campaigns:
The first is landing page performance; you should often check whether you let Google select your site landing pages to display or if you made up a customized page feed.
In the same area as your regular campaigns, you find this information on the left side under Landing Page.
You can add bid modifiers to every landing page according to its performance. And you can exclude landing page that don’t perform well, too. If you want to add pages to adjust bids, you should click the Blue+ sign and select Specific Webpages.
From that point, you can provide the URLs that need bid adjustments. Or, you can devise a real if what your evaluating are in related categories, and you can bid on them as a group.
The second performance category to monitor is Search Queries. DSAs/dynamic ad targets can be potent for finding new Search terms, you usually need to watch the type of traffic you generate.
It’s often best to review Search Queries every week when you first start DSA campaigns/existing keyword based campaigns. You can switch to less frequent checks after you have added enough negative keywords.
For companies that want to expand their Google reach but don’t want to spend on their Display Network, looking at DSAs is a good choice. But before you do that, there are some critical questions to answer about your site:
If the answers are ‘yes,’ then you should look into dynamic search ads. A website that fits these statements is probably a good bet to benefit from DSAs.
But if the site’s/website content is incomplete or out of date, you might want to look into DSAs with Page title/Feeds that link to your best site pages.
Whether you run a big Google Ads account/Google dynamic Search Ads account or simply want to push more traffic to your site and want a simple way to do it, it’s worth trying dynamic search ads. Hopefully, this primer will encourage you to learn more about how DSAs can increase and improve your online business.
If you’re looking for assistance with your PPC ads management, we can help. Contact us today!
Transferring the ownership of a Google Ads account can be a hassle, especially for managers who have so much on their business plate. In addition, it can cause a nuisance both for the business owners and the clients as well.
However, if the process is carried out efficiently, it can add value for your client. And this is especially true if you get the job done right the first time of asking.
In addition, this can lead to a stronger mutual relationship between your PPC agency and your clients. Keep reading as we elaborate:
Did you know, an average person is estimated to encounter over 10,000 Ads every single day
One of the most significant advantages of taking over a client’s existing Google Das account is that there is already something you can work on.
It does not matter how bad the existing ad campaign is. Taking over an existing Google Ads accounts gives you a foundation to work from.
When you take over a client’s Google Ads account and start working on it, there’s always a protracted bedding-in period where you align everything according to your way.
Unfortunately, you may get impatient when you don’t know where to start. However, it is integral to remember that it’s all about your relationship with the client.
Before jumping into managing a client’s Google Ads account, the first thing you need to consider is that it’s all about business-client relationships.
In agencies, you cannot build successful relationships with your clients before learning the ins and outs of account management.
However, the steps listed above will help you build successful, long-term relationships with your clients.
You may wonder that you can impress your client with your initial setup, but this is a common mistake every beginner account manager makes.
Your client will not appreciate all the changes to the old campaign because all they seek are positive results.
Therefore, your client pays you to get positive results without making specific changes to the initial campaign.
But this doesn’t mean that you can’t and shouldn’t make any changes. If you think that your client’s initial campaign requires specific changes to make it better, go for it.
However, if the existing campaign is decent enough, you should not make any changes to impress your client.
The most important step o add value to your client is learning everything about their business.
While understanding the products and services of your clients is equally beneficial, understanding the long-term goals of your clients is way more important.
Ask yourself these questions. Does my client want to go public? Do they want to expand their business to specific demographics and markets shortly?
How does your client perceive the industry landscape? You can better understand the context your client is working on by putting up Google alerts for your client’s brand and that of their competition.
Moreover, you can conduct annual business reviews to illuminate the previous and current goals. Additionally, it will help you elucidate previous strategies that you can still implement.
Tracking is one of the most crucial things you must advocate for. However, when you start a new campaign, always set a specific goal for for-profit and other metrics you need to achieve.
Tell your client that their campaign ad needs to run for at least seven days with the entire tracking installed. This will give you an idea of what the campaign is doing and see which parts should be kept.
Before installing tracking when running campaigns, you may have occasionally received calls from angry clients complaining about decreased leads and sales soon after you launched a particular campaign.
There may have been times where you saw increased conversions and sales from the new campaign, but due to a drop in another source of marketing, it may have made it seem like you were responsible for the decline in leads.
Hence, make sure you take steps to avoid these situations in the future. For instance, installing tracking before launching the new campaign will help you back up your statements when you argue with a client.
For instance, you have been running your campaign for a while b just making minor changes. Yet, you have an excellent overall campaign with essential metrics.
However, you notice that a PPC manager changes your campaign’s bidding, structure, and metrics. Therefore, the algorithm of Google Ads will take time to examine whether these new changes will be effective or not.
While you should have the same score as before, even after making a few changes, Google tends to lose a substantial amount of money if your new campaign is not as good as before.
In addition, there may be a possibility that your audience will click on lesser expensive Google ads. Therefore, if you are planning to make a certain amount of changes to your campaign, make sure you roll them out over tie instead of making those changes all at once.
When relaunching your client’s new campaign, make sure you change the bidding according to the new and existing data. Do not take extra time to rethink whether a specific keyword will receive a higher bid.
Although your client’s old Google ads will not last them much longer and new Google ads will take over, the previous ads may control and enable you to troubleshoot.
Changing the keywords or the entire ad completely may not give you an idea about the source behind a particular problem when the CTR, conversion value, and conversion rates show a significant drop.
Nevertheless, old Google ads can have a substantial impact on the results of your new campaign.
You must reuse your client’s negative keywords list. There are chances your client may have done in-depth negative research for keywords that hold much value for your new campaign.
However, you must avoid copying and passing the entire list as it is. It may deteriorate the performance of your ad if it has a vast range of negative keywords.
Instead, use as much of the existing data, and negative keywords list you think will be enough for your campaign but do not overdo it.
Research shows that 68% of online experiences start with a search engine that has high-quality keywords.
Every beginner Google Ads accounts have used broad match for many years with little success. However, there have been cases where specific campaigns have performed better just using broad match.
Google conducts checks on quality keywords for broad match. Ultimately, this means that if you put a broad match keyword, Google will decide whether it is relevant enough.
Therefore, if you open a clint’s Google ads account that has good quality broad match keywords, be considerate when including broad match keywords because it is unpredictable whether you will get the same results or not.
When managing a client’s Google Ads account, make sure to communicate on daily, weekly, or monthly reports.
For instance, if your bid modifier for a specific location produces a higher ROI, send your client an email right away.
Communicating with your clients ad keeping them updated is key to building successful, loyal relationships.
Keeping your clients in the loop will build trust and prevent them from wandering into their accounts, making assumptions about how well the advertiser is handling the account.
However, some clients can be challenging to deal with, and once they are disappointed with something, it gets tough to turn things around.
Sending performance reports to your clients is a great way to keep them I the loop. Additionally, make sure you grant them full access to any services or tools you use to run the campaign.
For example, PPC accounts and site analytics. Finally, staying clear ad transparent with clients is a great way to build trust.
Clients can explore the tools you use to understand better how you are making things work.
It is essential to openly discuss the goals and expectations of your campaign with the client. Hear out what your client expects from the campaign and present them with suggestions accordingly.
Remember, the conversation needs to be honest. It is terrific to lower the expectations of your client. However, it is better to tell them everything honestly when setting goals for the campaign rather than justifying why it performed a certain way later on.
Don’t let your clients get locked into unrealistic goals. Instead, explain the entire process of investigating and researching the account to your client.
The client may have higher expectations, assuming that you will quickly take over the account that the previous marketer left. Ence, it is essential to elucidate your approach towards the campaign.
It is essential to address that every client is different. For example, you may b appointed by an organization with an entire marketing team to lend a little helping hand.
On the other hand, a single person could also hire you to help them with their campaign. In both cases, do not leave your creativity behind.
You may likely have a better idea for the client’s campaign to move their marketing strategy to the next level.
It would help if you spent extra time on keyword research. You must know what keywords perform better and generate the majority of your results and conversations.
Moreover, it is vital to address keywords that you think are hurting the performance of your campaign. Conduct extensive keyword research.
Remember, there’s always a possibility of valuable keywords that the old agency could not target.
Every time you get a new client, you have a fresh opportunity to begin from. A new client means you have a new and better chance to generate revenue for your advertising agency or you as a marketer alone.
Moreover, it can provide you with a unique learning experience as a marketer.
However, it can be hard to manage things when taking over a client’s Google Ads account. For example, picking up a campaign that an old PPC marketer left can be a hassle. This is especially true if they violated terms of service (even unwittingly) and got the client’s Google Ads account suspended.
Take your time to understand the intricacies of the new account. It is essential to maintain a good relationship with your client to run the campaign successfully.
Follow the steps above to effectively manage a new Google Ads account and take your marketing portfolio to the next level!
In today’s fast-changing digital world, the attention span of viewers is quite limited. And if you are a marketer, you might be aware of the effect video and images have on grabbing a buyer’s attention. For example, Amazon sellers use Amazon advertising as a foundation for their business.
If you sell your business on Amazon, you need to understand how leveraging Amazon sponsored brands video advertising can give your content maximum exposure while increasing organic leads.
The ecommerce business has exploded in 2021 with a 19.5% increase in online businesses. This makes it evident that using all the advertising metrics available is essential for your growth.
Therefore, one of the best ways to gain more visibility for your business is using Amazon-sponsored brands video ads.
Before we jump to how you can leverage Amazon sponsored brands ads, let’s dive into a bit of detail about what Amazon sponsored brands video ads are.
When shoppers browse through search results, Amazon sponsored ads immediately grab their attention. This makes Amazon brand ads a great way to increase the rate of conversions and clickthroughs.
When customers begin their searches, these video adverts are fixed around the products related to their search keywords.
Thus, shoppers with greater purchase intent will interact with such videos to learn more about the brand and its products before clicking the product listings.
This increases the chances of a buyer purchasing your product than that of a competitor’s. If you know how Amazon brand ads work, you might also know that you can use images, texts, and videos to create ads.
However, you must not forget that only people registered with your brand can access this feature. In addition, Amazon-sponsored brands video ads are usually keyword targeted.
These ads use a cost-per-click approach. This means you pay only when an audience shows interest in purchasing your listed products.
There are three essential elements in Amazon sponsored brands video ads. These are auto-play video, product details, and a mute-toggle button.
Hence, your video advert will automatically start playing once half of it is showing on the screen. The video will be muted by default, and you can unmute it whenever you want. The audience can unmute the video by clicking on the mute toggle button.
The duration of the video ad can be anywhere between six seconds and one minute. It is strongly recommended by Amazon to use videos that are over 30 seconds or less.
In the sponsored brand videos, the ads will repeatedly play in a loop. This means once the advertisement finishes playing, it will automatically repeat.
Amazon sponsored brand’s video ads usually play the most when users actively look for associated products and services. This means Amazon can put your video footage out there during the highest point of influence.
Users are at the most exciting times that aspire to purchase decisions inside them. This is when the unique selling point of your product can make the most difference.
In relation to the video format, Amazon considers three key benefits. These are it increases engagement, makes your content more relevant and directly integrates your video.
Video adverts are known to make a big difference. However, it would help if you used keyword targeting to pinpoint a relevant audience with the highest intent level for purchasing your products.
You must deliver your ads at a crucial moment and in the most engaging manner.
Like every other Pay Per Click ad running campaign sponsored brands video ads to require bidding using specific keywords, once you place the right keywords, your products will be ranked among the top search results for Amazon.
This will give your products more impressions from potential buyers. Alongside that, here are a few tips you can use to leverage Amazon-sponsored brands video ads.
Since your ad involves bidding, you need to remember that your budget will compete with other companies’ budgets.
The higher you bid, the greater exposure your products will get and hence, more sales. Therefore, when deciding the budget you are willing to spend, your market’s niche will play a huge role.
Moreover, this will also depend on how you spend your money on Amazon. Generally, the cost of your advertising will be six percent of the sales you expect. So it’s better f you do not cross it.
Given that the attention span of your viewers is so limited, the type of content you include in your Amazon sponsored brands video ad will play a crucial role in determining the traffic towards your products.
So first, you must have a transparent, eye-catching, and descriptive title to grab your audience’s attention right away.
This is mainly because the title is the first thing your audience will look at. Secondly, you must comply with the image requirements of Amazon.
Furthermore, keep the needs of your audience in mind. Think about what your audience needs from the products you sell and how your products can cater to those needs.
Finally, make sure the quality of your video is on point. If you want to ensure high-quality videos, you can hire a videographer to do all the video-content-related work for you so you can display your ad precisely the way you want to.
Using keywords plays a crucial role in determining your search result rankings. In addition, the keywords you use will significantly affect the category of your product and the advertising costs.
Make sure the keywords you use have enough search volume. If you don’t want your budget to get out of hand, use not that competitive keywords.
Outbid your competitors to maintain a higher PPC ranking. Consider using distinct keywords for both PPC and SEO.
Once you are happy with the video ad/Amazon video ads you have created, go through the entire submission procedure. It may take 72 hours or longer for your video to get approved.
If your video is not up to the mark and does not meet all the requirements, there are chances it may get rejected.
However, if you don’t want your video to get rejected, you can follow the specifications for video and audio below.
Did you know, your potential customers who browse through your product listings see a similar format each time? Well, now you do.
This format is a part of Amazon’s procedure of creating a consistent shopping experience. This is why Amazon’s brand ad does not follow the same old design.
Once the structure breaks, it makes a focal point. This automatically draws the audience’s attention towards this unique visual element.
In addition, some videos automatically start playing without audio, which creates an extraordinary motion for the eye and draws an eye-catching experience.
Additionally, with the digital world developing fast, search engines are becoming more advanced. However, it must be remembered that videos and pictures will also be a part of that advancement.
Since Amazon has unfolded ways to monetize several tools, it is possible for your brand to be ahead of time and already create video content with exceptional viewership rates.
With this new ad type, your products will be able to stand out from your competitors. Your brand will be able to tell a compelling story and attract viewers at a much faster rate.
With the changing landscape of Amazon, it is imperative to retain the attention of your audience. Unfortunately, the search results for Amazon are repeatedly filled with sponsored and recommended products rather than those that are ranking organically.
Sponsored brands video ads are very appealing since they work both on mobile and desktops. This eventually means that regardless of the device someone uses, they can quickly be served with a sponsored brands video ad.
In addition, these ads are straightforward to set up using the sponsored ad creative builder. With the proper support, Amazon sponsored brand’s video ads can originate several conversations and sales.
When you advertise your products using Amazon sponsored brand video ads, it will add a unique punch to your entire online advertising strategy, which will make your brand stand out from your competitors.
Once you find ways to stay ahead of your competition using the correct advertising targets, it can boost your sales in no time.
If you want to ensure your ads are effective, Amazon’s product monitoring system can be a lifesaver! Let us help you manage your Amazon ads today!
Do you know what days of the week and times are best to run your Google ad’s?
Why does it matter, you ask?
Well, knowing when to post can guarantee maximum conversion rates, impressions, CPA, or other beneficial metrics.
If you have been using your PPC account for several months, identify what days of the week and ad account’s time zone offer the most profit to your business.
This is called paid ads scheduling/schedule ads or dayparting in Google Ads.
And to help you with this, you should start using the Dimensions tab (one of the best options in Google Ads).
On the other hand, it might be challenging to run your Google Ad’s account for the first time/on viewer’s time zone. You are confronted with an enormous interface of charts, settings, and tables, and figuring out where to start may be challenging to say the least.
Your central focus will be on organizing your ad groups, keywords, and ppc ad campaigns and managing the possibilities of smart ad campaigns, dynamic ad groups, and any other thing that Google provides you when you create an account.
Creating bid adjustments in an area that most people ignore. Moreover, Google does not tell you more about bid adjustments while starting your ad campaigns; however, they are precious when you want to tweak your ad campaign with higher results.
You have a few bid alternatives while you are creating your Google Ad’s campaigns. For example, you may use an automatic bidding strategy to enhance conversions or clicks, or you can set your bids manually.
Google’s automated bidding algorithms enable it to put bids on your behalf depending on what it knows will bring you the desired outcomes.
This removes several of the uncertainty from determining how and when to bid on the keywords. But this also implies you might lose control over how much you are spending on each click.
On the other hand, the manually bidding approach lets you make bids for every keyword, giving you greater flexibility and making account maintenance much more time demanding.
In addition, whatever bidding technique you select, you get the choice of increasing or decreasing your offers when specific conditions are satisfied.
This implies you may invest less on hits you believe are much less critical to the organization and extra on clicks from people you think are more valuable to your business.
As you configure the Google Ad’s bidding, then will find that you can only make a few particular bid modifications. Some are more complex than others, but they are still all Google Ad’s bid modifications.
You will also observe that every bid adjustment category has its set of conditions in which it may be used and its own set of modification options.
Google will inform you of such limits when you configure your bid changes, but you should be conscious of them at all times.
When examining the possible ranges of modifications, keep in mind that a drop of 100% will prohibit your advertising from appearing.
Selecting this option allows you to altogether opt-out of seeing adverts in that set of conditions. With that said, here are the types of bid adjustments:
You may also implement alterations depending on demographic factors such as age, household income, and gender. This is one aspect of Google Ad’s demographic targeting small business owners.
This sort of change is available in the new Google Ad’s experience in ppc campaigns and ad groups.
Bids might be reduced by 90 percent or increased by 900 percent.
Ad scheduling changes allow you to vary the ad bid and regularity based on time of day/viewer’s time zone or days of the week. To use these Google Ad’s bid modifications, you must first create your ad scheduling.
That plan is easy to generate and allows you to change the days of the week quickly, and times your ad will show. Moreover, Ad schedule/Ad scheduling modifications can be used in ppc campaigns.
Device bid changes allow you to change the regularity of your adverts depending on the devices used by the searcher, such as:
This form of modification may be used in ad groups and ppc campaigns. However, always remember that if you adjust both the movement and the ad group, Google will utilize the ad group adjustment.
Moreover, you can reduce the bid minimum to 100%, which will result in advertisements no longer being displayed on that device. Furthermore, you can raise the bid by approximately 900%.
You can change the frequency with which your ad shows depending on the viewer’s location by using location adjustments.
Geographic areas such as countries and cities can be used to define the location. Join this with location extension to provide various bids to clients who are geographically close to your business.
This is an alternative method for adjusting the Google Ad’s bidding. Rather than increasing your general bid, you can modify your bid for call ppc ads campaigns alone.
The bid revisions will affect how frequently consumers see call extensions and call-only ads.
Methods of targeting Bid modifications are a more complex option. This allows you to generate bid changes for targeting strategies such as topics and placements for display network ads.
The remarketing list of your search advertisements is one of the most complex Google Ad’s bid modifications you can use.
To apply this bid adjustment, you must first create a remarketing list, which is simple to accomplish.
You may utilize this advanced bid adjustment if you are running advertisements on YouTube or the Display Network.
It relates to the material chosen by Google to be more in-demand, with more traffic and viewer engagement, as well as more impressions each day.
On the other hand, your ad should be eligible to appear on this content. In that instance, your bid adjustment may raise your bid.
The top content bid adjustments are applied to ad groups. It applies to the Google Display Network of websites and applications, as well as YouTube.
Adjustments cannot be used to lower the bid. However, you can boost it by up to 500%.
Below are the steps that will help you to set your bid modifications:
Choose the campaign/ad campaigns you want to make bid modifications for, then tap the ad scheduling option appearing on the left side. If no bid modifications are configured, it should appear like the image shown below.
After you have decided on your time ranges, hit the “edit ad schedule” option and fill in the blanks.
Remember that Google has recently altered the settings, and you only ever have six-time frames in a single day.
Before you save your new ad schedule, it should appear like the image as shown below. Save the file.
Create your test reporting plan after you have saved this. This test is best measured by looking at the findings week after week and reporting on the desired parameters.
Then, after 1 or 2 months, you can gather the findings and decide whether or not to continue with the time of day bid strategy.
Following are the reasons why any digital marketers uses Google Ad’s bid adjustments:
Bid modifications are also a quick and easy approach to test different campaigns.
You might, for example, see how much one of your existing campaigns might work as “mobile-only” by boosting the bid on smartphones and reducing the bid on other gadgets.
If anything goes well, you may want to explore making it a distinct campaign. On the other hand, delete your bid change to restore normalcy if things do not go as planned.
You may optimize your targeting by modifying who you ad spend most of your ad money on using bid modifications.
For instance, if you understand you are just more inclined to make deals at a specific time of day, you might boost the bid adjustment at that period.
You should be able to use your budget quite effectively if you improve your targeting. As a result, the ROI should be higher.
After you understand Google Ad’s bid modifications better, look at certain Google Ads bidding tactics and recommendations:
When creating your Google Ad’s bidding tactics, make use of real-world data. Taking the attempt to know how you operate across different sectors is part of this.
Keep an eye out for differences in locations, Target audiences/potential customers, online shoppers, location, time, and device. Try not to be hurried when reviewing the facts.
Make sure that you have waited long enough to allow for conversion delays. Alternatively, you may have to wait sometime for plenty of data to give meaningful insights.
As you plan your bid modifications and entire bidding strategy, consider your goals to achieve in mind. Your objectives will decide which ads and campaigns receive higher bids and which receive lower bids.
Allowing Smart Bidding to handle bid modifications for you is the most convenient option. These tactics will alter your bids automatically, depending on several parameters.
For example, target CPA and Target ROAS optimize for location, time, device, and target audience or online shoppers/potential customers for each ad auction.
A bid simulator is available in Google Ads. Take the initiative to use this to assist you in choosing an appropriate beginning place for the bids.
While human bidding has advantages and disadvantages, thus do automated Smart Bidding systems. They are beneficial for individuals who must manage many campaigns. It avoids wasting ad spend time.
The caution here is that you always wait until you have sufficient google ads data before using automated bidding. Therefore, to gather the data you require, experts usually recommend beginning by manual bidding.
You may try moving to automated bidding when you have a good quantity of data and have experienced some early success.
Some experts believe that 30 conversions each month in any ad campaigns is a good starting point. However, when you get to this level, you must seriously consider adopting an automated technique.
By using manual bidding in Google Adwords, you may avoid accidentally coming too near to or exceeding your budget.
Although Google Ads allows you to select your budget, the automatic bidding approach may make bids that are higher or lower than you wish. Manual bidding is the way to go if you want total control.
To understand better when to utilize automated bidding generally, you should also be conversant with specific tactics.
For instance, the Target CPA Smart Bidding technique is excellent for increasing conversions. Nevertheless, to collect adequate data, you need gradually transition to this method over time.
Another example is the improved CPC approach, which is excellent for increasing conversion value and conversions.
In addition, it is one of the most cost-effective solutions since it blends Smart Bidding alongside manual bidding.
Even if you use Smart Bidding to automate the whole process, you need to set up a system to handle your bids.
First, Google Ads recommends generating essential bids that will allow you to accomplish your overall objectives.
After that, use bid modifications to account for campaign performance variances between segments such as device type or location.
Any overlap with bid modifications should also be considered in your plan. Keep in mind how Google Ads handles overlapping bid modifications for the time of day, location, and target audience/online shoppers.
When configuring the Google Ads bidding, be sure to distribute your money among many tactics.
This is a great safety net since it assures that you do not wasting ad spend/waste your overall budget if a bidding strategy or ad campaigns fails to yield results.
There are a few things you can do to increase the efficiency of the bid changes. First, begin by attempting to adhere to campaign-level alterations.
Always make group-level changes if the performance of campaigns varies significantly among them. However, it is highly efficient and creates changes based on more significant amounts of data.
Campaigns, after all, will have more data than commercials since they are more significant groupings.
Another effective method is to test for merging your campaigns. However, remember that you may utilize segments to perfect your bid modifications even if you combine campaigns.
Even though you pick the best bid changes and bidding method, you still need the correct keywords to be successful.
So opt for keywords that have a cheap ad costs per click and a higher conversion data volume. That would be a nice balance for most businesses between garnering enough clicks and staying within their budget.
Search for long-tail keywords having precise matches as well. Again, there is plenty of purpose behind such keywords, and they tend to give a significant profit on ad investment.
However, they are much less competitive since they are more particular.
Remember to explore negative keywords in conjunction with your primary keywords. It allows you to avoid spending money and time attracting queries that are unable to convert.
Keep in mind that the primary objective of your Google Adwords bidding is to acquire clicks that turn into conversions.
Therefore, take the time to adjust your landing page and ad copy to maximize conversion rates. They should accurately express your service or product as well as what distinguishes you.
In the headers, they must also utilize identical terms, ideally the exact phrasing. Again, this will significantly lower your bounce rate.
While being at the top of Google Ads will earn you more hits, it is not always the greatest option for your Ad Costs per click and ad budget.
In several circumstances, the second place will receive nearly as many hits as first. This seems to be the case even though the offer for the top position maybe 2 to 3 times.
Although you may lose some clicks by going for the second slot rather than the first, you will also have a cheaper CPC and will still receive sufficient returns to justify your efforts.
Being ranked second might also improve your conversion rates and bounce rate. But, again, this is caused by human behavior and the idea that people tap on every first link they see without even checking if it is appropriate.
Whether they are peering at the second or third place, they will most likely require a few moments to determine its significance.
Consequently, you will have a higher response rate and ad spend less money on clicks that do not convert.
Google Ads bid adjustments make it simple to tailor your bids to particular visitors depending on characteristics such as demographics, location, device, retargeting, scheduling, and others.
This will allow you to make better use of your budget. Moreover, It also cuts down on time you should ad spend generating distinct ads and building up different budgets.
It becomes a natural component of Google Ads bidding after you get used to putting up bid modifications.
For the best results, incorporate the changes with additional bidding techniques and advice.
If you need help with your dayparting strategy, contact us about hiring our PPC management services for expert management of your Google Ads campaigns.
If you own a business website, you know that earning consumer trust is a vital, ongoing process. Anyone who takes consumer trust for granted will probably find themselves out of business in short order.
Consumer trust is needed to build a fantastic brand, find new prospects, and encourage them to become regular customers.
But building trust isn’t a quick process and with one mistake, you can lose it. That’s why you need to develop effective brand messaging that grows and nurtures consumer confidence.
The good news is you can develop trust by creating effective video ads. No matter what your business niche, social media can be effectively leveraged to create powerful video advertisements and interactions with your audience. The result is making your company brand seem reliable and trustworthy.
If you remember the following information about how to develop trust with video, you’ll be able to attract more clients for years to come.
When you start your video YouTube marketing efforts, you should make foundational videos that establish your company’s voice, identity, mission, and goals. Remember, behind every memorable brand is an outstanding story that touches and motivates people to interact with the company.
Your prospects want to know what makes your company tick, why it exists, and what your mission is. Why should they spend their time and money getting to know you instead of your competitors?
Your foundational videos should be as real and down-to-earth as you can make them. The idea is to make your company easy to identity with so your prospects want to get to know and stay with you.
Make sure you talk about how your company is different from others in your niche. Also, detail how your company hasn’t forgotten where it came and from and maintains its values as it grows.
Also, make every video interesting and as creative as you can so your audience watches the entire clip.
Testimonials from satisfied customers play a vital role in making prospects decide to trust your company. Consumers listen carefully to client testimonials when deciding if they should give your company a shot. That’s why video testimonials are so important for building trust in your marketing campaigns.
The best video testimonials will tell prospects the following:
Consumers tend to trust companies they feel they can relate to. One way to do this is to highlight employees who create your products and interact with customers.
Your videos should have interesting videos of employees being interviewed. Have them describe why they enjoy working for your organization. Also, the videos should explain how they are able to work with customers and what those interactions mean to them.
The more your prospects know the employees that represent your company, the more likely they are to feel linked to your business. Also, prospects want to know that the firm they support is committed to treating its employees well.
The more you can share about how your employees support your brand and customers, the more the audience will remember you.
Video ads don’t need to just be a one-way conversation. If you make them more engaging and interactive, your customers will trust you easier. Some ways you can make your video ads engaging include:
Remember, you don’t want to shoot a video and post it and never return to it. Continue to use the video to interact with your audience in the comment section. Also, post the video on your social media channels and interact with your audience there.
Make your video ads and features as authentic as possible. Customers will respond negatively if your videos are too slick and polished. People will pick up if you are being honest and authentic or not.
A great way to show authenticity is to use real people in videos and not actors. Most people will embrace your company even if it makes mistakes, as long as you seem authentic.
But, it’s admittedly more work than some simply retargeted banner or display ads.
If you are featured in your marketing video, be yourself. Speak naturally as if a person just bumped into you in a store or on the street. You don’t want to come off like you are reading from a script.
Also, don’t feel as if you have to have everything memorized when you do your ad. Just act like a human being and talk like you are conversing with a friend. If you do that, people will reward you with their trust.
There are many examples of companies that are imperfect and make mistakes. But if you are natural and authentic in your ads, people will still reward you with their business.
Consumer trust is what separates the best companies from the also-rans. If you use video in the ways described here, you can develop trust by building long-term relationships with prospects and clients.
And that is the key to making your business thrive for the long term. If your business is in the market for actively-managed PPC services, get in touch, we can help!
f you want to register an Instagram Id/account to advertise your products and services, great! But promoting or sell products can be challenging if you don’t warm up the Instagram Id/account first.
If you don’t warm up the account and decide to use automation tools, you will violate the terms of service, which can get the account shut down.
So what does warming up an account mean?
Warming up an Instagram Id/account generally involves these steps:
After you spend a few weeks doing this, you should use your Instagram Id/account for advertising.
You must warm up your account before you launch an advertising campaign, or Instagram will ban you.
See, moderators and algorithms monitor Instagram ads. If they see a new account advertising immediately, the advertisement is stopped, and the user is banned.
Suspicious behavior is main thing such as:
If you warm up your Instagram Id/account, you’ll get around the algorithms and show you’re just a ‘regular user’ and are trustworthy. When Instagram algorithms trust you, they will see your ad campaign regularly and won’t suspect you’re doing something harmful.
The account will likely get banned eventually, but warming up the account lets you delay this for a while so you can get your money’s worth.
If you are new to the Instagram world, that’s fine, but don’t sign up for too many accounts at one time, or you’ll attract attention. Register one Instagram Id/account and warm it up before you start to monetize it:
If you decide to buy Instagram Id/account, look closely at their details. You shouldn’t use accounts from other regions; they may have been created with software and could already be watched by Instagram.
You should use your Instagram account as an average person would by following More people, making posts and comments, and liking pictures and comments.
Also, try to act like a regular person for at least a week; the longer you act like an average human, the more trust you will have.
Next, you should connect your Instagram Id/account to Facebook. Here’s why:
When you first connect your Facebook and Instagram accounts, you’ll be able to promote posts and put ads on Instagram. After that, you should spend maybe $20, so the site algorithms know you’re using ads manager for regular campaigns. The most important thing is to launch ads from Facebook Ad Manager.
The cost of Instagram ads can vary, but, as always, testing will ensure you are appropriately allocating resources.
Now that you know why it’s essential to warm up your Instagram account for advertising, you can focus on growing your new followers organically:
Hashtags are more important on Instagram than any other social media site. The correct hashtag can get your photo to a large custom audience, even if they don’t follow you.
Twitter and Linkedin also use hashtags (which can help in targeting for lead generation on Linkedin), but Instagram users use them a lot too. So don’t be shy about using a bunch of relevant hashtags that you think your target audience may use.
You can use as many as 30 hashtags on photos and up to 10 on your Stories. So take advantage!
Follow and engage users like you, and engage with them by commenting on and liking their photos.
One strategy people use effectively is known as ‘follow, like, like, like.’ Search for users with hashtags that are relevant to your business and customers. Follow users of top photos that you find and like their most recent three photos. Doing this shows them you didn’t just follow them; you spent some time on who they are.
Posting often and consistently is essential to market your business well, and that’s true when you want to grow your following on Instagram. Research indicates the typical Instagram average user posts one time per day.
Also, people with the most fans post two or three photos per day. So the data tells you if you want more followers, you should post often.
Note that Instagram doesn’t have an algorithm that filters your landing page/page. So, you don’t have any drop-off with engagement or reach if you post more. So you should be encouraged to post high-quality photos often; it will help you gain followers and exposure.
This will depend on your business and audience, but research shows that using emojis increases followers and engagement. Emojis are commonly used to express emotion on social media, and you should use them. Why?
Because Instagram tells us that almost 50% of all comments and captions on the platform contain emojis. If it’s appropriate for your custom audience and followers, you should have emojis on some posts and comments.
Now that you know more about Instagram account warming and other engagement tips, you should be on your way to more marketing success.
Analyzing your competitors is a critical strategy for creating a winning pay-per-click campaign. You need to know who your competitors are, what keywords they’re targeting, which keywords they’re ignoring, and what kind of ads they’re running.
You can get all of this information manually, but it’s easier and faster to get it from PPC competitor analysis software for competitive analysis.
Analyzing what your competitors are doing will help you avoid their mistakes and imitate their successes. It’s like getting an inside scoop on what works and what doesn’t without having to experiment with every possibility yourself.
Although you’ll be analyzing your competitors’ PPC activity and gaining great insights from their advertisements, competitor analysis is not a own marketing strategy for copying their ads.
You’ll get creative ideas from their ad copy, images, keywords, and headlines, but it’s important to remember to avoid copying images and text word-for-word.
If you’re already getting decent results from PPC ads, analyzing your competition can help you increase your market share.
To help you start analyzing your competitors, we’ve created a list of the top 8 PPC best website competitor analysis tools.
If you’re running an SEO marketing campaigns, you’ve probably at least heard of SEMRush, if you haven’t already purchased a subscription. This is one of the best search engine optimization (SEO) tools/competitor analysis tool around, but it’s also excellent for PPC competitor analysis.
Features
The free version of SEMRush will give you an overview of data, but you’ll need a paid account to get the details for competitive analysis.
SEMRush is one of those versatile best competitor analysis tools that every digital marketer should have for marketing efforts.
Google’s Action Insights tool makes it easy to compare your PPC ads with your competitors/competitive analysis, including overall performance and bidding strategy.
Features
When you use this tool, you’ll be able to view ad data from competitors bidding, competitors rank on the same keywords and ad placement auctions as you. Auction Insights will show you the following metrics:
Google’s Action Insights is free and comes with your Google Ads account to spy on your competitors.
The Facebook Ad Library is one of the most underused competitor analysis tool around. Born from the desire to provide transparency, the Facebook Ad Library will give you free access to all current ads published by your competitors.
Features
Even if you don’t plan on running PPC ads on Facebook, check out what your competitors are publishing. You can use their ads to help determine your next moves on other PPC platforms.
The ads database from What Runs Where contains ads from more than 90,000 individual advertisers, which amounts to over 60 million advertisements. When you need ad data from your competitors/spy on your competitors, you can’t beat the insights from a database this large.
Features:
The information provided by What Runs Where will help you optimize your own PPC ad campaign to capture more of your competitors’ traffic.
Pricing
What Runs Where offers two different plans at $299 and $399 per month.
When you’re managing an SEO and PPC ad campaign, Spyfu is a great resource to spy on your competitors. However, some people have reported inaccurate website traffic and budget data so be prepared to compare data with another tool.
Features
Spyfu is one tool that provides free users with access to large amounts of data, so it’s definitely worth signing up to test out.
You can also search for competitors backlinks and export your data to custom reports. If you want a powerful competitor/competitor research analysis tool, Spyfu has you covered with a risk-free 30-day money back guarantee.
Serpstat is primarily an SEO platform with PPC competitor analysis feature’s.
Features
There’s a free browser-based version of Serpstat, but the features are limited. You’ll need a paid account to get significant, usable insights.
iSpionage is one of the more affordable paid PPC competitor analysis tools and it also happens to provide some of the most advanced insights. This is a great tool for learning what works and following the examples set by successful competitors.
Features
Overall, iSpionage is a great tool for anyone running a PPC marketing campaigns.
KeywordSpy offers several PPC competitor analysis feature’s that pull real-time data. Some top brands use KeywordSpy, including Toyota, IBM, and American Express.
Features
The free trial will allow you to track a maximum of ten keywords, ads, and domains/competitor’s domain from your competitors.
Ultimately, PPC competitive analysis tool will help you spy on your competitors & increase your CTR, reduce your CPC, identify keyword gaps, and ensure you’re targeting all the right keywords for your industry.
If you haven’t started analyzing your competition, sign up for some free trials with the competitor analysis tool listed in this article and take them for a test run. When you find the competitor analysis tools that fit your needs, upgrade to a paid version.
How is your PPC ad strategy working out? If you’re getting less-than desirable results, our PPC ad services can help.
Running PPC ads isn’t easy. In fact, it takes time and commitment to learn all the ins and outs of pay-per-click advertising. Although some self-taught marketers can run a decently successful campaign, achieving outstanding results is a job best suited for professionals.
There are many complex PPC ad strategies you can’t learn over the weekend, like dayparting, for example. Also, each PPC platform requires a slightly different approach on the technical side.
If your ad campaign is struggling, reach out to our team of ad specialists – we’d love to help you get the clicks and conversions you deserve.
Businesses can do one of many things to optimize their PPC ad campaigns and improve profitability.
However, if you just started a business, these strategies may seem a little daunting initially.
Ad groups either contain a single ad or several ads that target specific keywords. Then, you set a certain price for those ads every time your ad group’s keywords trigger it to appear in front of your audience.
The best part about this strategy is setting your price for individual keywords within an ad group. You can also customize your ad group according to a specific theme.
For example, you can personalize them according to your brand’s persona or the types of products and services you offer.
Before jumping into how you can optimize your ad groups for better reach, it is essential to understand what ad groups are.
Ad groups are sets of keywords that businesses use in their targeted campaigns: every single ad or a group of ads shares similar targets.
You will be required to set a specific price or bid that will be used when the keywords cause an ad to appear to your audience.
These bids are called CPC ( Cost Per Click) bids. The advertising service usually sets these keywords for your PPC marketing campaigns.
When creating an account and setting up details, you will be asked to generate an ad group that will store text ads, landing pages, and keywords.
This will allow you to create an organized structure for your PPC ads. This can be very helpful when you monitor your progress and make specific changes to your PPC Ad campaigns.
For example, if you make a unique ad group for all the products and services your business offers, you might make an ad group for products you offer to your commercial clients and a different one for your residential ones.
Long story short, you can effortlessly structure your promotional materials through tools provided by PPC advertising agencies and services.
Every PPC advertising campaign you create lets you have multiple ad groups. Every ad group must contain at least one ad and one keyword. You can perfectly run a PPC ad with one ad group, one campaign, and one keyword. Moreover, you can also use one campaign and one ad group to market multiple keywords.
The question most business owners ask themselves is, “what is the benefit of running an ad group for PPC ad campaigns?”
To understand these benefits, it is crucial to look at the features shared between several ad groups and the parts that can be set separately for each one.
Let’s use an example to explain the benefits of ad groups better. Think of owning a restaurant that serves different types of cuisines from all over the world.
Having several ad groups for your PPC campaigns allows you to generate ads close to a specific group of keywords.
You can also fragment your keywords into different lists that are much more related. However, each ad group must ideally have one specific keyword and numerous variations.
For example, you can have separate ad groups for “Sushi rolls” or “Pepperoni Pizza.” In addition, you can create an ad campaign for a specific keyword and include several keywords such as “Cheese Pepperoni Pizza” or “Sushi Rice Rolls.”
Targetting long-tailed keywords drives better conversations than using common keywords. However, it would help if you still made sure that the ads are compelling enough so that users can click and improve conversion rates.
You can do this by creating different ad groups for long-tailed keywords. For example, you can create long-tailed keywords like “Which sushi roll flavor should I try.”
This will give you a chance to specifically target a user who wants to try different flavors of sushi rolls. You can also create a landing page and ads that compare different flavors of sushi roll sauces.
It’s not like you can set up a campaign, and it will keep running for life. You will need to tweak your keywords constantly.
For example, delete the old ones you don’t need and add new ones. You can also generate new ad groups for your new keywords without disrupting the old ones.
You can easily optimize your ads by creating new ad groups for the keywords. Moreover, you will also optimize your landing pages without worrying about harming other keywords.
The changes in your ad groups can significantly impact your overall campaign budget. However, you can also preset specific funding for all ad groups without worrying it will exceed.
Then, when there is a peak in queries related to one ad group, it will automatically absorb the price from other ad groups.
This strategy can be beneficial if you own a small business since startup businesses usually work within a limited budget.
Now that you are aware of the importance of ad groups in PPC let’s look at ways you can create better ad groups for your PPC campaigns.
It is essential to get all the tactical elements right to ensure functional structure. This will help you quickly benefit from the most innovative paid search methods that rely on automation and scripts.
For example, when you decide the number of ad groups you need, you must consider what type of searches need to be covered the most.
Your audience plays a crucial role in your ad group structure. You can use bid modifiers to avoid creating separate campaigns.
Moreover, it is vital to identify your audience’s specific needs and preferences. It will help you understand the niche of your business and help you come up with new product ideas according to the requirements of your customers.
In addition, identifying a specific need will help you communicate with your audience effectively while improving engagement rates.
Moreover, you must use any first-party and third-party data that helps you guide your structure. You can also target old customers using RLSA campaigns.
However, you must slice your structure a little bit further, mainly if you sell several products and services.
For example, you can create separate ad campaigns for users who have purchased specific products from you. This will help you support cross-selling business objectives that have specific dedicated goals.
You may want a similar geography footprint for your business, just like it does with any other channel.
However, the demands of your search engine will likely be different from the location of your offline sales.
So, take your time and search where most of your online and offline sales occur—for example, the cities, states, countries, areas, etc.
Once you do this, you can set up individual campaigns for your top markets. Then, if you still have some of the budget remaining, you can create a campaign that covers all the remaining audience in places your consumers usually come from.
When deciding a specific language to target, you need to see where most of your bulk audience is coming from. If you want to target several languages, you can create separate campaigns for each language.
Every device’s performance dramatically varies. Therefore, before optimizing your campaigns in relation to a specific device, you must consider some of the advantages and disadvantages listed below.
The mobile user experience will be vital if the site has a responsive design. Your campaign can have the same goals as those generated on other devices.
Moreover, segmenting your campaign according to the devices will reduce the KPI and traffic available for optimization. This may create campaigns that do not have much volume.
It is recommended that you do not generate campaigns concerning a device if it does not present a solid amount of cost, traffic, and goals.
Instead, you can use device bid modifiers to efficiently tailor the ad message across several devices.
Using keywords is extremely important in any PPC ad campaign. While Google does provide you with good quality keywords according to the relevance of your campaign, it is highly crucial to integrate keywords that have a higher CTR.
Studies have shown that 68% of online searches begin with a Search engine through keywords. So, when you make an ad group, make sure to check the performance of your keywords before integrating them.
And if your audience belongs to a different geographical location, finding keywords relevant to that specific location may be challenging. In such cases, you must use a VPN to discover what keywords rank in that location.
With a VPN, you will acquire an IP address of a particular area. This will help you navigate through the internet just like a local would.
Although several VPN options are available, some of them might not be up to the mark in terms of quality.
Therefore, you need to make a wise decision regarding the VPN you choose to surf through the internet in that particular location. Check online reviews before investing in a VPN service.
Using ad extensions is one of the best ways to unravel information regarding your products and services. Generally, there are two kinds of ad extensions.
Advertisers use manual ad extensions according to the requirements of their business. Therefore, you can easily customize and personalize manual ad extensions.
Moreover, these extensions further segment into several other extensions like location, call out, site link, review, etc.
On the contrary, automatic ad extensions function automatically. Furthermore, automatic ad extensions are also segmented into several other attachments such as previous visits, dynamic site links, customer ratings, etc.
It is common for ads to have a high bounce rate in pay-per-click marketing. For example, you might have specific customers who purchase products from you and then sway away.
Advertisers use remarketing through blogs, articles, and websites to regain those customers. In addition, advertisers can generate custom messages that lure visitors to revisit your website and purchase a product or service through remarketing.
It is essential t keep track of your PPC campaigns to ensure the success of your ad groups. Unfortunately, some marketers don’t realize the importance of keeping track of their PPC campaigns. This is one of the reasons why their PPC campaigns are unsuccessful.
Make sure you constantly monitor the performance of your PPC campaigns, as it will help you gain significant insights into how well your PPC campaign is performing.
Google Analytics is an excellent tool for advertisers who use Google Ads to market their advertisements. Research has shown that Google Ads convert 50% better than organic reach.
Hence, if you use Google Ads to market your campaign, there are high chances your website will rank better if you optimize your ad groups.
You can invest in an automation tool to improve the efficiency of your ad groups. Automation tools offer closed-loop reporting to help you quickly find information regarding your campaigns.
It also allows you to use excellent marketing strategies to improve the performance of your campaigns.
PPC advertising can help you boost engagement and increase your website’s visibility irrespective of the type and size of your business. However, following the steps listed above is essential to ensure your campaign is working well.
Ad copies are a great way to ensure the success of your ad groups. Therefore, it is essential to write an ad copy that is convincing enough to retain old customers and attract newer ones.
In addition, make sure you state your business’s unique selling point so that your customers have a reason to choose you over your competition.
Moreover, make sure your ad copies are relevant. Link all your ads with relevant keywords and landing pages.
Furthermore, make sure you generate eye-catching headlines since these are the first thing a visitor looks at.
Use power words in your headlines to make them even more compelling. For example, you can use words like Free, Today Only, Exclusive, Instant Etc. Finally, end your ad copies with an eye-grabbing call to action.
Every marketer seeks ad groups that are compelling and cost less at the same time. Therefore, consistency in an ad group is critical.
In addition, your landing pages must directly speak to an audience searching for something to reach your website. Therefore, make sure you consistently create ad texts, landing pages, and keyword groups closely related.
When you create well-aligned ad groups, not only do you pay less, and convert more.
For example, suppose a user searches for graphic designing services, and your ad talks about it and sends them to a similar landing page. In that scenario, you will get more conversions than a landing page that does not associate graphic designing services.
So, long story short, you need to be very vigilant in what you include in your ad copies as they play a huge role in determining how successful your ads will be.
Running Facebook Ads is among the most successful strategies when growing your brand, generating sales and leads, and establishing loyal consumers.
However, for marketers, Facebook Ads are even more critical. This is related to the size of the audience, targeting possibilities, social network attention, and a decrease in organic reach.
It’s reasonable to think that you have a few rivals among the ten million-plus Facebook advertisers. When it comes to competition, you should preferably be aware of their assets and how successfully they are doing it. The same is true if you’re running ads on Facebook.
You may boost the effectiveness of your Facebook Ad campaign by identifying the fans of your competitors’ pages. However, there is one distinguishing feature of your competitors’ consumers that you may use.
Remember, your opponent’s audience represents a set of consumers that are already poised to purchase what you have to offer.
Therefore, as a marketer, you simply cannot afford to squander this valuable real estate. Hence, you need to know how to tailor your Facebook advertising to your rivals’ audience.
A brand is set apart by the additional value it offers. And this is established through different marketing and promotion campaigns.
Not only are inventive ideas needed in the marketing business, but one also needs to monitor their rivals’ advertising efforts, targeting their consumers.
Here is how you target Facebook ads to the competitor’s audience:
Lookalike audiences are a powerful tool on Facebook that may assist you in obtaining an audience similar to that of another business.
Install Facebook pixels on your website and establish a Custom audience for the most remarkable ad results. These audiences share certain qualities – Facebook will look for people who have these characteristics.
Using a Lookalike audience to reach audiences of a rival is a successful strategy. This is because your items are so similar; there is a lot of overlap in your targeted traffic. Therefore, adopt the same traits as your competition and fans. For example, you may find rivals’ Facebook Page fans using the Lookalike audience technique.
Lookalike audiences that target Facebook advertising to rivals’ sites do not appear overnight. Targeting the correct audience and analyzing the precise characteristics of competitors’ Facebook followers takes time.
Therefore, you should examine the advertising audiences of marketers to develop the most accurate bespoke audience.
You cannot directly target the followers of your rivals’ pages on Facebook – there isn’t a button for that! However, Facebook Ads make approaching people with common interests more accessible as well as huge competitors.
Therefore, you can give more value to your advertisements once you’ve researched the material that connects with the audience you’re trying to target.
All you have to do is go to the “Interests” area and enter the name of the competing fan page.
For example, suppose you’re producing advertisements for a local bakery business. In that case, you may target visitors in the region who “like” or have expressed interest in pages linked to top local bakery companies.
But unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all method for reaching your competition through interest-based audiences.
However, by assessing client interests, you will profit from a highly targeted audience. You may then use the information on shared interests to develop bespoke audiences. These will help you target individuals with interests likely to coincide with your contenders and your business.
Getting the focus of your rivals’ audience is less about deliberately targeting relevant page fans and more about aligning to their interests and characteristics.
This enables you to send more relevant messages by improving your Facebook Ad targeting possibilities. Additionally, customizing your Facebook. However, to prevent wasting advertising expenditures on possibly rigid consumers, this method must be implemented correctly.
As a result, hiring a qualified advertising firm with the ability, tools, and knowledge to manage such parts of your PPC campaigns is recommended.
Compile a list of particular competitor pages that you wish to target. These pages can be found using a variety of methods. As you conduct your investigation, make a note of the page titles and URLs.
With that said, these are the best ways to locate relevant competitor pages:
Please make a list of all of your top competitors and find their Facebook pages. For example, you can locate the corporate Facebook pages or the founders’ pages.
Fill the Facebook search box with relevant terms and then choose the desired pages. You can go through this list for more sites relating to your profession.
Consider your sector’s brands and public figures as an excellent tactic. Locate and add their Facebook pages to your list.
If you’ve liked a page relating to your sector, they must be doing something well. So it may be helpful to examine your own Facebook profile and make a list of the relevant pages you have liked in the past.
You may access your likes by appending ‘/likes’ to the end of your Facebook profile URL.
When you click on the Community tab on any Facebook page, you will find a list of top fans.
Navigate to their profiles and add ‘/likes’ at the end of the URL.
Now you’ll be able to look at other pages that they’ve liked.
Go to a Facebook page that is relevant to your industry. Then, in the sidebar, look for ‘Related Pages’ or ‘Pages Liked by This Page.’ These alternatives allow you to delve down the rabbit hole and uncover competition pages you may not have considered otherwise.
Add interests that are important to your business to Facebook Audience Insights. Then, click the ‘Page Likes’ tab to get a list of pages liked by individuals with those interests.
To signify significance, Facebook arranges this list by affinity score. Pay special attention to sites with a high-affinity score.
Enter your search terms into YouTube to check who has the highest-ranking videos. Look out for their Facebook sites as well. They most likely have a valid, high-quality audience you can address.
When you go straight on your competitor’s Facebook page from the Audience Insights dashboard, you’ll get many content ideas and research data. Examine your rivals’ pages and take notice of the user involvement and the content as well.
Examine the left side of your rival’s Facebook profile. You will notice direct connections to their material categorized as:
Connect each of these links and dive deeper to see what kind of engagement they are receiving.
Once you’ve determined if their engagement is favorable or harmful, you may devise strategies to adjust your Facebook Ad approach accordingly. Here are some critical questions to assist you:
Examine how relevant platforms and your rivals engage their audiences in ways that progress them along the sales funnel. You may use this information to create your audience targeting techniques that will take visitors away from your competitors.
This strategy is quite successful since you effectively retarget an already engaged Facebook audience with material they have already expressed an interest in. To pique the interest of these followers, you may add your own distinctive and personal touch.
Split testing your target audiences helps you determine which ones produce the most remarkable outcomes for your ad campaigns. Since you’ve gathered important information about your competitors’ audiences and their likes (based on data from your page list), the Facebook split test audience factor is an excellent tool for precise targeting.
This tool separates your audience into random, non-overlapping groups and enables you to collect statistically meaningful data. You can have up to five versions of your test variable in the Facebook split test. Facebook computes and compares the price per result for every ad-set.
And then, the ad-set with the lowest possible cost per outcome (cost per video view) prevails. Next, Facebook uses test data and hundreds of simulations to calculate the Confidence Level, which is displayed as a percentage. Thus, estimating your chances of having similar findings if you repeated the split test.
As a result, in this scenario, you may use an audience split test and a goal to discover which audience delivers the lowest cost per video view. The steps for building a split test campaign includes:
When your winning ad set is discovered, Facebook will stop the test. You can now apply the split test to your whole sales funnel and pit your rivals’ audiences against one another to see where your subsequent efforts should go.
Targeting competitors in Facebook is not as clear-cut as it is in Microsoft Ads and Google Ads. Despite that, it can still be a worthwhile strategy to examine.
The point to keep in mind is to be careful with what you type in as your target and observe any performance to judge whether it can work for you or not.
01Digital marketing and PPC companies use advanced marketing techniques to reach online audiences, and one of the most important is PPC or pay per click.
Below are some of the most frequent questions we hear about PPC.
There are several reasons you may not see your PPC ads when you search Google:
You may be seeing remarketing ads which many digital marketing companies recommend.
Remarketing takes effect by using a cookie when searchers to go your site. The cookie lets your campaign target them as they look at other websites on Google’s network.
You should try this as well because it can really drive up your conversions.
You probably have competition going after your keywords. Just as your team is doing keyword conversion optimization, your competitors are too, which boosts the price. Just one competitor being more aggressive can make the CPCs much higher.
Another issue that drives cost is quality score.
If you see a decrease in quality score, you may have higher costs per clock.
There are many variables that influence quality score, but some of the most vital is CTR, the relevance of the ad, and the relevance of the landing page.
You can help here by making sure all of them are being improved by your team.
Improving the metrics that affect quality score is one of the best ways to improve the effectiveness of your PPC ads.
There are some challenges when you start PPC, and the biggest is being good at it. First, you need to do a lot of work upfront to have a solid PPC campaign.
For example, you must do a great job researching and picking perfect keywords. Then you must organize your keywords into effective ad groups and campaigns. You also need to establish good landing pages that have been optimized to convert traffic and also programmed to defeat click fraud, which is when a person or bot clicks your ad to drain your budget.
When it’s done effectively, PPC is one of business’s most powerful marketing tools. But if you don’t do it right, it’s just throwing money down the toilet. Whether it is best for your company depends on what your objectives are.
For brand awareness, PPC can work great. No matter whether your ads work as far as ROI or not, if it gets impressions, more people know about your company.
For increased revenue, PPC can work well, but you need to have a high-quality website set up to convert your traffic to sales.
There are several ways you can optimize your PPC campaign depending on what your business does. For instance, the Google Shopping Network may be ideal for companies because it can have ad text and images. But if the company offers services, you may want expanded ad text.
If you find Google is doing well for you, it makes sense to advertise on Bing. You will get a lower volume of leads but the traffic may be more cost-effective than Google.
Your competitors know that searchers looking for your company could be customers for them, too. They’re trying to nab them. There isn’t anything you can do to stop this as it’s not illegal. This is another cost-effective way to get prospects that you may consider.
The quality score is how Google views how good your ads are compared to your landing pages and keywords. It’s important to have a high quality score because you get better positioning and lower CPC.
You can improve this score by making sure your text for the ad is relevant to your landing page and keywords. Also, look at the landing page and what the user experience is like. You also may add negative keywords that aren’t relevant to your business.
First, double-check that your conversion tracking has been set up correctly. It can be hard to get conversions when you first start your campaigns. But to make them happen, run tests all the time. Be sure every ad is relevant to your keyword and landing page. And use negative keywords, too.
Next, competitor analysis is vital for PPC and there are many tools that will help you do well with it. If you look in your Google Ads Interface, you can go over Auction Insights to find out the competitors you have for the identical keywords.
Doing well with PPC takes a lot of time, planning, and execution. But if you carefully select your keywords, negative keywords, and optimize your landing pages for conversions, you should be able to increase sales and brand awareness over the year.
If your Google Ads aren’t showing or if you are having issues with your PPC ROI, get in touch, we can help!
Do you want to rank better in search engines? Do you want more traffic coming to your website? If so, then you should not be ignoring other link building tool.
There are many different strategies that SEOs use to generate links for their clients such as link building strategy, but some are much more effective than others. In this article, we will review the best paid or free link building tools/link builders for SEOs and how each one can help improve your rankings.
Responsa is a link-building service that has been around for many years and offers great customer support. Using Responsa, SEOs can help bring backlinks or broken links to websites that have few or no links pointing to them.
The best thing about this tool is the fact it’s all automated – just type in your URL (or competitor website) and they’ll show you insightful data to improve your link building campaigns.
If you’ve got limited time on your hands or don’t know how to get started with other tools, then this might be a good choice for you.
Majestic SEO is another link-building tool that allows users to analyze backlinks and get a lot more information about where they’re coming from. It has been around for many years, so it’s very popular among SEOs who are looking for reliable and trusted software.
A great feature of this program is the ability to find websites linking to your competition by entering their website URL into the Majestic interface (or vice versa).
In addition, you can use this tool to see how fresh links are in relation to other sources as well as what type of anchor text was used when they were created.
For those reasons, we think that Majestic may be one of the best tools out there if you want to use an amazing tool with higher-end features.
MozBar is another popular tool with SEOs. It’s a browser extension that you can use for free to access/day free trial their features and data from the toolbar in your browser window.
This program allows users to see how many backlinks they have, rank on search engines like Google or Bing, as well as get an idea of what type of content might be attracting visitors at first glance Also link building efforts, broken link building & outreach campaigns.
It also gives users information about website authority, domain authority, keyword research tool & seo metrics – something which may help them decide whether or not they want to invest any time into building links for it.
For these reasons, MozBar could be one way to generate valuable insights when looking over your link building campaigns if you don’t already know where else to start off with this process or link building process.
Raven is a tool that lets you know how popular your website or webpage is on the internet.
This means it can show SEOs what search terms are driving traffic to their site, who might be linking back to them, and more all in real-time!
For those reasons, Raven could be something worth checking out if you want never-before-seen data for insights as well as an all-inclusive dashboard with tons of information at once.
Ahrefs is another reliable link-building software for those who want to spend some money.
It’s a tool that provides users with an overview of their backlinks, broken links as well as the ability to find new ones/ link building opportunities, link prospecting, referring domains, link building outreach efforts and track them over time.
This means you can see how long it takes before they start driving traffic, when the links were created, etc. You’ll be able to gather more insight into what content has been working on your site too – this will help SEOs decide where they should invest resources next!
For these reasons, we think Ahrefs may have one of the best link building tool, most in-depth features around for anyone looking for something robust that offers all kinds of metrics at once (including pages indexed) than other link building tools.
Screaming Frog might be the most robust link-building tool on this list.
It’s a desktop program that lets you crawl through your site or competition and find any links pointing to them – which is great for SEOs who need something easy-to-use but also incredibly powerful at the same time!
You can choose from different types of crawls, use filters when searching for anything by keyword (which helps with accuracy), and automatically export all information in an Excel file too.
For those reasons, we think Screaming Frog might be a good choice if you want more control over what type of data you’re looking for during your research process without needing some kind of complicated software.
BuzzSumo is a tool that can help you find out what content has been most popular on social media.
This means users will be able to see which types of blog post are generating the most attention, who created them in the first place, and where they were shared too.
For those reasons, we think BuzzSumo might be one way for SEOs to get an idea of how content performs in this channel. It could also be a good tool if you’re looking for some content marketing inspiration as well.
SEMrush is an SEO software that lets you find keywords/keyword research for SEO campaigns.
This means it can generate long-tail search phrases, tell users how popular they are on the internet, and even show what percentage of traffic goes to them – which could be immensely valuable information for anyone who wants in-depth data about their site’s performance!
For those reasons, SEMrush might have one of the most exhaustive functions out there when it comes to finding new ideas for content or anything else related to your campaign. It also has tons of metrics at once which may make this tool one worth checking out if you want something with lots of different features.
Link-building is the most important aspect of digital marketing because it’s a major driver of website rankings on the internet. Using the right free tools (google search console) will help you maintain a competitive edge in your industry and elevate your website’s ranking.
Still, managing a build links/link-building campaign takes a lot of time, effort, and SEO knowledge. Do you want to learn more about how we can help? If so, contact us today to speak to a member of our team.
These days marketers and businesses excessively rely on digital marketing to achieve their goals. Finding leads, generating interest, qualifying leads, and ultimately converting them into paying customers – all of it can easily be done online. And pay-per-click (PPC) digital advertising is an efficient way to do so. Brands across the globe invest in comprehensive PPC as it builds brand awareness, drives more web traffic, and produces more high-quality leads.
However, like all other online marketing strategies, it is essential to keep an eye on the results and tweak your PPC campaigns for maximum effectiveness. This also includes knowing that you are getting the expected return on your investment in PPC.
ROI is a critical success metric. Let’s find out how you can calculate the ROI for your PPC campaigns and even improve it.
There are three commonly-used ways to measure PPC ROI/calculate PPC ROI success:
Calculating PPC ROI as part of a PPC campaign management shows its actual effect on your business. At the same time, it is vital to check vanity metrics like clicks and impressions to measure PPC success.
As a marketer, you already know that click costs are just one part of the equation. You also need to factor in a range of other expenses when calculating the total cost of a PPC campaign. Some of these include:
All of these expenses affect your PPC campaigns’ total cost. Next, retrieve the total revenue so you can calculate your ROI.
The simplest formula to calculate ROI is:
(Profit – Cost) / Cost
Generally, advertisers refer to ROAS when they talk about ROI because the difference between the two is whether you consider your business’s cost of carrying out PPC advertising business.
ROAS is calculated as:
(PPC Revenue – PPC Cost) / PPC Cost
The result is written in a percentage form. For instance, if your PPC sales are $1,200, while you paid $600 as PPC click costs, the ROAS will be 100%:
($1200 profit – $600 cost = $600) / $ 600 cost = 1.0 = 100%
The ROAS formula is very straightforward, and you can gauge your overall PPC performance and make optimization easy. ROAS is used in bid optimization algorithms to calculate these bids with the help of the bid management platforms.
The calculation of all possible costs, including those to generate leads and sell products, is still insufficient. PPC helps you maximize your profits bringing in maximum visitors and sales at a reasonable cost.
Conversions are highly dependent on the right keywords being used in ads, getting clicks at a good cost, showing Google ads to searchers, and converting visitors to buyers.
To calculate profit per click/impression, you need extensive data for clicks, impressions, total sale, and total cost. First, calculate the profit by subtracting the total cost from total sales (you can also factor in the overhead costs).
Use this formula to calculate the profit per impressions:
Profit / Impressions
Use this formula to calculate the profit per click:
Profit / Click
With these calculations, you can figure out which metric to go for with the keyword or ad or carry out further testing if the information still seems insufficient.
Digital marketing is tricky because it’s constantly evolving. You have to be on your toes and continuously improve your numbers to stay ahead in the race for PPC and search ad domination.
If you find out that the return on investment Or PPC ROI isn’t as good as you expected or could be better, it’s time to improve your game.
Here are a few ways you can increase your PPC ROI:
It is essential to target the right audience for your ads, regardless of the time you display the Google ads to them. Since audiences differ from another for every ad, there might be Google ads that follow a better trend at a specific time.
Generally, ad networks let users schedule the Google ads for the time and days that best suit their needs. For instance, if a local garment store’s ad performs better during a FIFA game, go ahead and pick the same schedule for all your ads.
PPC ads depend on keywords, even more so than they do on demographics. You can understand the customers’ intent with the keywords they use in search or the websites they visit. You can use this data from online activity and enhance your PPC campaigns’ effectiveness using the exact keyword matches.
The exact keyword match will result in the ad being displayed when that phrase is used without any other words. Since you limit an ad’s reach in this way, you have to make sure you use this approach properly so the people who watch the ad are the ones who will most probably buy your products.
For instance, a car dealer selling a Honda Civic EX must use the exact “honda civic EX price” keyword in their ad. Since this is a particular keyword, anyone who searches for it must be a potential buyer of the car, and as a result, the perfect target audience for your car ad.
Even though you have a target audience base, there will be different groups within them who will respond differently to your ads for several reasons. As a result, it is essential to make multiple campaigns so you can cover all of them.
If you resort to using a single PPC campaign to appeal to all these people, you will have a poor ROI. Marketers should carefully design various ads, considering the kind of consumers who would like to use your products and the type of ad that will best explain their value to them.
A great way to improve your PPC campaigns is through negative keywords. This way, your ad won’t be shown to uninterested or unrelated audiences. For instance, a men’s shoe store should use the negative keyword “women” because why should the business pay for a wasted click or view’?
Similarly, a luxury brand that sells expensive goods should use the negative keywords “cheap,” “sale,” or “affordable” to avoid showing the ad to those who want cheaper or imitation brands.
While getting a click on an ad from a customer is huge, your job doesn’t end over there. Ad clicks aren’t enough to generate revenue, and as a marketer, you can improve your ROI with features like videos on your landing page. This helps to increase conversions of customers who click an ad and get there.
Furthermore, you can test your landing page to see if you can easily convert customers once they arrive. When you design targeted landing pages, you allow users to reach a specific page, depending on the clicked ad.
Marketers using Google AdWords should focus on improving their ad’s Quality Score to increase their ROI. The frequency with which the consumers click on an ad and convert after clicking on it affects the score.
Successful ads give more money to Google, and as a result, high-quality score ads are placed higher. It is best to see your ad’s Quality Scores to observe what aligns the most with your target audience.
It is essential to include keywords in your ad copy and target information to capture your viewer’s attention. These words are the ones they consciously or subconsciously look for in an ad when they scan it.
While it depends on an ad’s format, generally, keywords are bold to make them stand out to increase attention and consequently get people to click on your ad.
You cannot improve your ROI and campaigns unless you thoroughly track their results. You can make variations in an ad or its targeting in several ways to affect outcomes. Try out various combinations and track results to determine which target audience and ad type are the most effective.
For instance, you can use variations like different CTAs or distinct background colors for your PPC advertising.
The PPC return on investment/PPC ROI is an essential measure of success since it shows how well you are doing in your campaigns and how much you need to improve.
There are various ways you can measure the ROI and track their results to figure out how you can improve them to make money on your PPC campaigns. Try different methods and see which one aligns with your audience and ads the most. Stick to it instead of going back and forth to ensure a steady approach.
In order to get a positive return on investment with your pay-per-click (PPC) ad campaign, you need to pay attention to the numbers.
That’s really all PPC Online advertising is – a numbers game. And if you get the numbers right, you win.
But which numbers matter most? And how can you boost those numbers as much as possible to increase your success and revenue?
Well, it all starts with a good click-through rate (CTR).
In this article, we’re going to dive into the nitty-gritty of what click through rate is, why it’s important, what percentages you should be aiming for, and clever (somewhat random) ways you can get better results.
Let’s go all the way back to the basics and dig into what the Average click through rate(CTR) metric represents, how to calculate it, and all of the basic 101-level information that usually gets glossed over.
If you already know this stuff, great – consider it a quick refresher (or move on to the section below on benchmark PPC CTR rates). If you’re totally new to the PPC game, then this will give you a baseline understanding so that everything else we’re about to discuss will make sense.
So, without further ado, let’s get into the definition.
An Average click through rate(CTR), is basically the percentage of impressions that result in total number of clicks. In order to calculate this number, you simply take the number of clicks and divide it by the total number of impressions (people who saw the ad). Then you multiply that number by 100.
For example, let’s say your online ad got 5,000 impressions and 75 people clicked. The equation would look like this:
(75 / 5,000) x 100
The result is (.015) x (100). This comes out to 1.5 percent. This is your click-through rate. It means 1.5 percent of people who saw your online ad clicked.
Okay, great – but so what?
The simplest answer is that the click-throughs on paid ad platforms like Google and Facebook use Average click through rate CTR to quickly evaluate the health and value of an ad. If lots of people are clicking, then it tells the algorithm that this is an attractive ad that’s making them lots of money. And if the ad is making them lots of money, they want to make sure you keep serving the ad. This leads them to lower the cost per click (CPC) as a way of incentivizing you to continue online advertising on their network.
In the case of Google Ads management,(CTR) also impacts something known as a “Quality Score.” This score is awarded on a 1-10 scale and is determined by a mixture of factors like Average click through rate(CTR), landing page UX, and ad relevance.
An ad’s Quality Score impacts its “Ad Rank,” which Google uses to determine where ads show up on search results. A high CTR leads to a higher Quality Score, which in turn leads to a higher Ad Rank. This ends up putting your ad in front of more of your target customers at a lower price.
If that’s all a bit confusing, here’s a simple visual to make it easier:
CTR → Quality Score → Ad Rank → PPC Ad Placement → Higher CTR
It’s basically a self-feeding cycle. As your CTR increases, so do all of the other metrics. This usually leads to a higher CTR, which…well, you get the picture.
Once you understand what (CTR) is and why it’s important for PPC ads, the next logical question is, what’s a good click-through rate?
The answer is…it depends!
I know – that’s not the answer you’re looking for – but we’re going to take a deeper dive in just a moment. The point is that there’s no concrete figure. There are dozens of circumstantial variables that come into play based on your product, industry, creative, and the PPC platform (Google vs. Facebook vs. Others).
When evaluating baseline PPC CTR, there are a few quick factors you can take into account right from the start. This includes (a) how the ad is being displayed, and (b) the industry you’re in.
Let’s start with how the ad is being displayed. With Google ads, there are two different networks. You have the Google or other search engines network and the Google display network.
The search network includes text-based ads that pop up within Google search results (at the top and bottom of the page). The display network serves ads on other websites. These are typically image-based ads and banners.
Google search network ads tend to have a slightly better click through rate(CTR), simply because they appear within the search results. Averages across all industries are usually somewhere in the 1.75 – 2.00 percent range.
Ads in the Google display network are usually much lower – somewhere south of 0.50 percent. (This is due to the fact that many users use ad blockers and other plugins that make it less likely they’ll even see the ad.)
When it comes to the industry, the average click through rate(CTR) can change dramatically from one sector to another. Here are some examples pulled from recent reports:
As you can see, the standard from industry to industry is different. Achieving a 4 percent CTR in dating and personals might be extremely low, whereas it would be an incredible rate in technology. This just goes to show there are a lot of unique factors in play.
Even within specific industries, averages vary based on the offer, type of product, brand, etc.
The fact that click-through rates vary so much can actually be viewed as a good thing. It means you always have the ability to increase your numbers. And, sometimes, all it takes is a little creativity.
Now that we have some basic context established, let’s dig into the juicy stuff. How can you improve your PPC click-through rates so that you stand a better chance of producing conversion rate and increasing revenue?
Here are several suggestions:
Humans have a wide range of emotions. And while we like to assume that we’re fairly rational creatures who make logical decisions after having all of the facts laid out for us, the truth is that we typically act on emotion (then justify with logic after the fact).
As an advertiser, you can use this little bit of knowledge to your advantage. Avoid the logical plea and get emotional. Ethically leveraging love, fear, hope, belonging, shock, and surprise can help you get better click-through rates.
For example, let’s say you’re running an ad for roses during Valentine’s. Leading with something like “2 Dozen Roses for Just $29” is actually a fairly weak hook. You might make a few sales, but there’s nothing other than price at play. What about all of the buyers who are less price sensitive?
A better ad might read: “She Thinks You Forgot. Roses Delivered Same Day.” Do you see how much better this ad copy is? It makes an emotional appeal – not just a logical dollars and cents pitch.
Questions can be powerful when used appropriately in your PPC ads management. People are naturally curious and posing the right query can get people thinking about things through whatever filter or context you’d like.
When asking questions, try wording them in a way that the answer is obvious. (Not only that, but the answer should be obvious and certain to push them closer to clicking.)
Going back to our roses example, you could do something like this: “Miss Her Birthday Again? 2 Dozen Roses Will Do The Trick.”
Or if you’re a financial advisor: “Unprepared for Retirement? Learn How to Create a Guaranteed Stream of Income in Your Golden Years.”
A good question can save valuable space in your ad by letting your prospect tell themselves why they should click. This can be more powerful than using a direct command.
Humans have a huge, oversized fear of missing out on something. You might even say this is a distinctly human trait. Dogs don’t see other dogs walking with their owners as the sun goes down and think to themselves, “No! I hope I don’t miss out on a walk with my owner before the sun sets!” Now, if you tell a dog that you’re going on a walk, they might get really excited. (And they might even get sad if you’re then unable to take them out.) But they don’t have a fear of missing out.
With humans, we’re constantly fearful of being left out or missing the boat. In many cases, we’ll do anything to avoid this feeling – even if it means spending time or money on something we might not truly need.
In advertising, you can tap into FOMO by creating urgency and/or playing the scarcity card. You can do this by setting a deadline for a sale, releasing a limited order quantity, or using some sort of tiered discount based on when people place an order.
While not perfect for every brand, humor can be a very useful mechanism for increasing click through rate(CTR) and getting a better response. Having said that, it’s a somewhat risky play – simply because everyone has a unique sense of humor. You could easily miss the mark and drive your click through rate(CTR) close to zero.
If you’re going to attempt humor in your ads, we recommend running multiple variations. Have a humorous version and a non-humorous version and split test the same ad creative. This will give you a pretty good feel for the response. After gathering enough data, you can make a decision on whether to move forward with the funny ad or nix it.
We can talk all we want about ad creatives, copy, and other elements, but it all comes down to ad-audience fit. If you aren’t focusing on the right audience, you aren’t going to have high CTRs.
For Facebook in particular, where you have a massive amount of control over your audience, niching down to a very specific part of the market is going to give you the ability to create much more targeted ad copy and images that resonate.
For example, don’t just target business owners. Target restaurant owners. And then split your ad campaign up so that you can target South Carolina restaurant owners and California restaurant owners separately. This gives you so much more relevancy and control.
One school of thought says you should max out your ad by using every single character you’re allowed to use within the character limit. But is this really the best way to go?
There’s ample research to suggest shorter ads (particularly on Facebook) get more number of clicks and better engagement. In fact, as character count increases, response rates steadily fall off.
The fact that shorter ads do better is likely due to the fact that people have very small attention spans. An ad that can be consumed in three seconds is much more enticing than an ad that takes 90 seconds to read. Even if your copy is great and you can effortlessly compel people to read sentence after sentence with mouth-watering copy, there’s simply too much friction to attract a large percentage of your audience. Keep it short!
When dealing with Google display network ads and/or Facebook ads, the image is the most important part. People will process the image long before they read the copy or call-to-action. So when you run an ad, always split test at least three different images. This will give you a feel for what your customers respond to best.
PPC is both an art and a science. It requires equal parts creativity, technical competence, and experience. If you’re lacking in any of these three areas, you aren’t going to get the sort of results you need.
But there’s good news: We can help.
At PPC.co, we partner with entrepreneurs, digital marketers & email marketers/ email marketing professionals, agencies, startups, small businesses, and established enterprises to make PPC advertising a smooth, seamless experience that ultimately results in more clicks and conversion rate.
Want to learn more about whether we’re a good fit for each other? Let’s chat!
The entire purpose of a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign is to immediately attract prospects from the search engine results pages (SERPs) and direct them to a landing page where they can be converted into paying customers.
Clearly, the impetus of any PPC campaign is targeting an exhaustive list of short and long-tail or target keywords to attract as many prospects as possible. Of course, this has to be done while maintaining a reasonable budget.
Creating a successful PPC campaign is about finding equilibrium between exact keyword usage and budget management. To achieve remarkable growth in your PPC campaign, it’s important to learn and master the concept of using exact-match keywords.
Using Positive or negative exact match keywords can help deliver the most qualified leads to your landing pages, improving your ad quality score, and increasing your business’ revenue. If you’re not familiar with this concept, then you’ve come to the right place.
This complete guide will cover everything you need to know to master using exact-match keyword’s in your PPC campaign.
Understanding what an/how exact match keyword is is fairly simple. It’s a different keyword match type that are available in both Google and Bing Ads. When you use an exact match keyword, your google ads campaigns will be able to reach potential customers searching for the exact match search term you’re bidding on, or at least a very close variant.
By placing bids on exact match keywords, you can explicitly control how much you’re spending on Google and Bing Ads. This will help you to achieve a higher ROI with your campaign.
If you’re a beginner creating online ads, then it’s best for you to learn what the same or different keyword match types is (let’s use Google Ads for an example). When you want to create a textual ad in Google Ads, you can choose between a wide variety of different match types, such as broad, exact match keyword, and phrase.
Let’s discuss the other keyword types below.
Broad match is the standard choice for text ads on Google Ads. As its name suggests, broad match keywords are designed to reach the widest audience possible. When you choose to target broad match keyword’s, your ad will reach internet users who use search term’s that match any word of your targeted keyword, in any order.
For example, if your modified broad match keyword is “luxury race car”, your ad will appear for user search terms like “fast cars”, “fast race cars” “luxury cars” and many more different variations.
With broad match keyword’s, Google will also match your Google ads with synonymous variations. For example, Google may show your ad when a person types in “expensive cars” in their search bar.
Since broad match types are designed to reach the largest audience possible, it can capture the attention of people who may not be looking for your particular service or product. As such, your ad costs can quickly increase without affecting your conversion rate.
Unfortunately, broad match type is the default option for text ads. This means that your google ads could be set to this option without you even realizing it. To put it simply, broad match keywords drive a lot of clicks, but you should be careful about positioning your business for keywords that aren’t going to result in more conversions.
For example, here is what an SERP looks like for the same keyword “Google ads”:
Of course, the first ad placement is from Google. No one is going to outrank them for this keyword. However, the second placement is for a google ads campaign manager tool, and the third placement is for advertising on Snapchat.
These products and services differ tremendously. Therefore, if you’re targeting a specific audience, you’re better off using another match type.
Phrase match keyword’s offer some of the flexibility compared to broad match keywords, while giving them a high level of control over their spending.
When you target phrase keywords match types, your ad will only appear when a user searches for keywords in its exact match order. However, some words can appear either before or after the original search terms.
As you can see, phrase match keywords work a bit differently than broad match keywords. Though, there are some noticeable similarities. Exact match keyword are extremely different from both default match types.
Using them in your campaign can have a significant impact on your upcoming results.
Fortunately, using exact-match keywords isn’t as difficult as it seems. Below, you’ll learn about three proven ways to utilize exact match keywords in your campaign.
The shorter your positive or negative keyword match types is, the more impressions and clicks you’ll receive if you bid on it. However, receiving a lot of clicks isn’t always a great thing. Long-tail keywords are known for having nearly infinite variations.
Thus, if you were to target a bunch of different long-tail keywords while promoting a very specific service, you could waste your budget on a lot of irrelevant search queries/exact keywords.
When targeting a broad target audience, it’s always best to cast a large net in a small pond. Exact match keywords help to narrow down your focus if you’re targeting a large audience.
Wide reach can run up your advertising costs significantly. With exact match keywords, you can at least know that your ads will focus intensely on the most qualified leads for your budget.
Search intent is the context an internet user is looking for when searching for a keyword. Before trying out any exact match keywords, conduct a preliminary search and see what types of words appear in existing ads.
Do you see words like “purchase”, “buy”, and more, then you can potentially target internet users who are more willing to buy than window shop.
Becoming fluent in using exact match keywords isn’t difficult. Though, it requires much patience, experimentation, and a lot of time. If you lack all of these qualities, then it’s safe to say that you need help.
Contact us today to receive a free proposal and start growing your PPC campaign.
Businesses need a constant flow of reasonably-priced leads to stay ahead. Whether you’re building up a client base or maintaining steady work, lead generation strategies/lead generation marketing are a constant need. That’s why in this post, we’ll go over the best place to find business-to-business (B2B) leads—Linkedin through professional Linkedin ads management.
LinkedIn is the largest global professional network and the number one platform for lead generation. The social network is responsible for 97% of a business’s social media leads, making it 277% more effective for lead generation than Facebook and Twitter.
What sets LinkedIn apart from other social networks is its professional community of business-minded members for which it was designed. 4 out of every 5 LinkedIn members drive business decisions. This means a highly concentrated pool of potential B2B clients.
In this article, we’ll go over the benefits of using LinkedIn to generate leads or B2B leads and the best local B2B lead generation strategies.
Source: https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/success/lead-generation
LinkedIn is where professionals keep up to date on their company and industry. In addition to its 774+ million members, LinkedIn has over 57 million business and 120,000 school accounts. LinkedIn’s active user base of professionals makes it a goldmine for potential B2B clients.
Plus, LinkedIn offers a host of professional data and news feed product or service. Because it is geared toward business professionals, LinkedIn sits atop all other social media platforms for lead generation strategies.
Source: https://neilpatel.com/blog/linkedin-marketing-tips/
Generating B2B high quality leads on LinkedIn requires a good strategy. Here are some actionable steps to acing your approach to LinkedIn:
When done right, an attractive company page will draw in valuable business. To create a company page, log in to your LinkedIn account and click the “Work” icon in the top right corner. A drop-down menu will appear, at the bottom of which you’ll find a link to “Create a Company Page.” Press the link and you’ll be asked about your company type, name, details, and so forth. Creating your company page only takes a few minutes.
As you complete your profile, you’ll notice a “Build Your Page” progress bar at the top of the page. Make sure to complete your profile in full as completed pages get 30% more traffic.
Don’t only provide basic information and facts about your company. Structure your page in a way that leads to conversions. The tagline should immediately tell visitors what your business offers. The header image should be engaging. And the company description should include a clear and compelling pitch with calls to action (CTAs). Get straight to the pitch in the first two lines since LinkedIn hides the rest under a “see more” button.
Finally, keep your recent updates section filled with relevant, clickable content. An empty updates section shows that you are not engaged on the platform, and sales team-qualified leads will be less likely to trust you.
Showcase Pages allow you to segment your B2B leads for different products, brands, events, and more. Also known as affiliate pages, Showcase Pages are like LinkedIn’s version of a landing page.
Create a Showcase Page by clicking on the “Admin tools” drop-down menu in the top right corner. Then click “Create a Showcase Page” under “Reach.” From there, you’ll be able to set a showcase page name and URL extension.
Try to keep showcase page names short, so they are not cut off on the sidebar of your company page. Most of all, prime your showcase pages for conversion with succinct descriptions and CTAs.
LinkedIn has over 2 million groups where professionals with similar interests or industry background can share insights and make connections. Joining relevant and active groups is an easy way to grow your network.
You can find groups to join by searching at the top of the homepage. Look for groups that are medium-sized, big enough to be worth your while but small enough for you to be noticed. Keep in mind, LinkedIn only allows you to be a member of 50 groups at most.
After you’ve established yourself as a thought leader, you can even create your own group. This gives you extra admin rights to control who joins or leaves the group and to steer the conversation around a certain topic or industry.
No doubt, groups are an easy way to connect with others in a natural way without sending cold requests.
So far, we’ve talked about ways to attract high quality leads. But you can also actively seek out prospective clients on LinkedIn. Identify your ideal lead scoring by developing a buyer persona and then use advanced search to find them. A buyer persona is a detailed description of someone who represents your target customer/potential customers.
With LinkedIn’s advanced search, you can narrow searches by connection type, location, company, industry, school, language, and more. Plus, you can narrow search results incrementally as you go. That way, you don’t need to start a new search every time you want to tweak the search filters.
If you want to streamline your outreach efforts, save your search criteria on LinkedIn and come back for new search results later. LinkedIn will even send you email alerts when new people match your saved search queries. This can save you a lot of time and effort in the long run.
Of course, the purpose of LinkedIn is to make connections.
But don’t just try to connect with anyone. Strive for quality leads connections that are relevant to your business. Sometimes members try to connect with anyone just to get to the coveted 500 connections threshold, but it really doesn’t do you any good to have a bunch of mediocre connections and no actual leads.
So use the advanced search tactics outlined above to find your ideal clients. Always include a personal message with any connection request, so it has the best chance of being accepted. People won’t always accept requests from people they don’t know, so remind them who you are or tell them why they should connect with you.
LinkedIn is not only a networking platform but a publishing platform. You can publish content in regular news feed posts or full articles.
When you post, you can include a photo, video, event, or even a slideshare presentation. You want to keep these short and sweet because users don’t spend much time scrolling through the news feed.
To write an article, simply click on “Write Article” under the “Start a post” bar. You can then write a headline and the body of your article, which can include images, rich media, and hyperlinks. Articles should be around 300-1000 words with catchy headlines that draw the reader in. Once you’ve read the article over a few times and edited for mistakes, click “Publish” to share it.
With both types of content you can determine who will see it, whether anybody on LinkedIn and the web or just your connections.
As for what to publish, publish content that is engaging, takes on industry pain points, and shows your expertise. With enough effort and time, you can become a thought leader in your industry and clients will come to you.
Thought leadership is a major driver of LinkedIn funnel traffic. Consider the following statistics from LinkedIn:
Establishing credibility through daily content is a huge source of B2B leads. To make your voice heard, publish both under your company page profile and under your individual profile as someone representing your company. That way, you can maximize your content exposure on LinkedIn.
Use an editorial calendar to keep a steady flow of content. Try posting at least once a week but strive for once a day if you can. Eventually, your network will learn to look forward to your thoughts and insights.
Whatever you do, make sure your content always adds value to users. You should share innovative and original ideas backed by relevant data. Include visuals like infographics or high-quality leads and photos, anything to capture users’ attention. Discuss action plans that others can follow to show you have real value to offer. An excellent example of this is search engine optimization (SEO) guru Brian Dean. He’ll show off one of his accomplishments and then tell you how he did it:
Source: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianedean/detail/recent-activity/shares/
If you can’t think of what to post about, check out the “what people are talking about now” box on the right side of the homepage for some inspiration. Try striking up new conversations by forecasting future industry pain points or digging into their causes. You can also always share other people’s content that you find especially helpful or insightful. Stay selective with what you share and users will come to appreciate your tailored taste.
Mention influencers to build extra credibility. Cite any conversations you’ve had with other thought leaders whose followings you want to tap into. This can mutually benefit you and them by merging your networks. So look for ways to collaborate with other industry leaders.
End every post with relevant hashtags. LinkedIn adopted hashtags from Twitter to categorize trending topics and improve searches. By including hashtags that relate to your client’s needs, you can attract potential customers or clients searching LinkedIn for that specific topic. But don’t overdo the hashtags. Otherwise, it may come across as tacky. 3 or 4 hashtags are enough.
Finally, don’t forget to reward user engagement on your content by liking and responding to comments and following up on any questions. The more you engage, the more likely users will want to engage with your posts.
Like other social networks, LinkedIn offers advertising on their platform. Though LinkedIn advertising is more expensive than advertising on Google or Facebook, it can also be more effective. Most LinkedIn users are already ready to do business. So your ads are already very targeted.
To start advertising on LinkedIn, first create a Campaign Manager account by clicking the “Work” icon in the top right corner of the homepage and then selecting “Advertise.” You’ll be asked for an account name, a billing currency, and a LinkedIn Page with which to associate the Campaign Manager account. Then click “Create account.”
The inbound lead generation Campaign/inbound lead generation process Manager will first ask you to choose from the following main objectives: brand awareness, consideration in form of visits and engagement, and conversions via the lead generation process. For the Business to business lead generation process, we recommend selecting conversions as your goal.
From there, you will choose your target audiences filtered by 20 different categories, including location, company, job experience, education, demographics, interest, and traits. You can even create custom audiences with LinkedIn’s Matched Audiences and lead generation tools.
There are four different types of ads to choose from: Sponsored Content, Message Ads, Dynamic Ads, and Text Ads:
Once you’ve chosen an ad type, you can determine how you want to fund your campaign. LinkedIn offers three pricing options: cost per send (CPS), cost per click (CPC), and cost per impression (CPM):
At this point, you can let your ad campaign go live. Track how it performs in the Campaign Manager and make adjustments as needed. You can edit your ads, refine your target audience, and adjust your budget as you go.
Advertising on LinkedIn can bring in a lot of B2B leads because it’s the network that most professionals use. It’s no wonder that B2B display advertising is projected to keep increasing from 2018 to 2021:
Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1256362/linkedin-advertising-b2b-us/
Besides advertising, LinkedIn offers several internal and lead-generation tools to help you manage B2B leads. Check out it’s Conversion Tracking and Sales team Navigator tools, for example.
On top of that, there are a host of other digital inbound lead generation tools available when it comes to Business to business lead generation. Experiment and find ones that work for you.
Generating B2B leads on LinkedIn is an ongoing process. But with an attractive company page and showcase pages, relevant groups, advanced outreach techniques, stellar content, and targeted advertising campaigns, you’ll have plenty of leads in no time.
If you need help managing your LinkedIn ad campaign, ppc.co can help. Our experts have years of experience using LinkedIn to generate leads. We offer provable return on ad spend, concrete reports, ongoing consulting, flexible plans and pricing, all with a personal touch. Contact us today for a free, comprehensive pay-per-click (PPC) audit and advertising assessment.
It’s an email no Google Ads user ever wants to receive: the dreaded “your account has been suspended” alert message.
It’s understandable to, well, freak out a little bit if you have Google Ads account suspended, particularly if the reason for the suspension is a violation you weren’t aware you’d committed. Quite simply, your Google ad campaigns may play a major role in your business’ success. Your own finances may therefore be in jeopardy if your account is suspended.
Fortunately, except in some specific instances, suspension of a Google Ads account isn’t necessarily permanent. There are various ways you can restore your account if it’s been suspended. This guide will explain them, helping you better understand what you can do to get your Google Ads accounts back up and running fast.
Although the primary focus of this guide will be on the steps you can take to remedy the problem if you have a Google Ads account suspended, naturally, your main goal is likely to prevent your account from being suspended in the first place. To minimize the chances that your Google’s Ads accounts will ever be suspended for any reason, carefully review Google’s applicable ad policies and Terms & Conditions. Also, remember that Google routinely updates certain policies, and you may want to regularly check them for any changes that may have been recently made.
Reviewing the relevant policies can also potentially help you determine the root of the issue if your account has been suspended but you’re not entirely certain why. While the email Google sends informing you that your account has been suspended will typically cite the reason, sometimes, it’s still not precisely clear how Google justified suspending your account. The reasons Google’s email may provide when explaining why your account was suspended are based on generic error codes (typically produced by artificial intelligence and machine learning engines) that may not be specific enough for you to thoroughly understand the nature of the issue.
Be aware that it’s possible your account was suspended through no fault of your own. For instance, someone could have hacked your account or site. If after doing so, they engaged in any behavior that violates Google’s ad policies, you may be the one paying the price.
The potential reasons your Google Ads accounts may be suspended are numerous. The following are merely a few noteworthy examples:
Google’s ad policies are designed to protect users. Thus, if you’re running ads that direct users to sites infected with malware or other dangerous software, your account may be suspended to prevent users from clicking on your ads.
Take immediate action if you have reason to believe a hacker added malware or unwanted software to your site. The presence of harmful malware or software won’t merely result in your Google’s Ads account being suspended. It can also threaten your data, any existing content on your site, and more.
Even if you didn’t intend to, you could have accidentally engaged in behavior that qualifies as “counterfeiting” affording to google ads policies, triggering an account’s suspension. For example, if you’re using your Google’s Ads account to market products that are extremely similar to others, you may need to either modify your ads or the products themselves to indicate you’re not violating any trademarks. Sometimes when a user markets products that are virtually indistinguishable from others, Google interprets their products as being counterfeit, when they may not actually be.
Google’s own policies aren’t the only rules you need to keep in mind when running ads! It’s also important to familiarize yourself with the laws of the areas in which you plan to advertise.
Sometimes, the laws regarding what you can and can’t advertise may be surprising. For example, in the UK, it’s illegal to advertise paternity tests. This is an easy law to break if you’re unaware of it. While you may assume you’re not doing anything illegal with your Ads account, the possibility of breaking the law without meaning to is one you should consider. Protect yourself by taking the time to research these issues before planning and launching campaigns.
You’re not always being “punished” when Google suspends your Ads account! There are instances when an account may be suspended in order to protect you in the long run. Specifically, if Google detects an unauthorized user trying to access your account, it may be automatically suspended to prevent a hacker from causing any damage.
The reason your account was suspended will to some degree affect what you need to do about the issue. Google’s policies make a distinction between regular violations and “egregious violations.”
You don’t want your account suspended because a violation was deemed egregious. Generally, while it’s possible to recover an account that was suspended due to a normal violation, if you’re found guilty of an egregious violation, Google usually won’t let you recover your account. Your best bet in these circumstances is to contact Google and (truthfully, of course!) show that the violation you’ve been accused of was the work of a hacker. Even so, you can’t be entirely sure Google’s team will take your side.
In the case of typical violations, though, you can restore your account in the following ways. Keep in mind, this isn’t a problem with a “one-size-fits-all” solution. The proper way to restore an account will depend on the reason it was suspended in the first place.
Your options include:
If the email you receive from Google explaining why your Google Ads account was suspended indicates your site is home to dangerous malware or software, invest in an effective malware-removal tool and clean your site up. If your account remains suspended even after you’re confident you’ve gotten rid of any and all harmful malware or software, you might have to contact Google to explain that you’ve fixed the problem.
Again, even if you didn’t mean to violate Google’s advertising policies or any local advertising laws, you may have done so simply because you weren’t aware of a law or policy. Luckily, after you’ve reviewed Google’s justification for your account suspension, in many instances, restoring your account is as easy as changing your ads or behavior accordingly. For example, if your account was suspended because Google determined one or more of your ads were excessively inflammatory, you can remove or change those ads to better align with Google’s standards.
It can be easy to lose track of your spending from time to time when running marketing campaigns. Depending on the size of your business, you might not even be directly involved in monitoring your spending most of the time.
Google might have suspended your Google Ads account or multiple google ads accounts because you haven’t paid for certain ads or a particular related service yet. Pay what’s due, and Google should restore your account promptly.
That said, you may want to reach out to Google first if you receive an email claiming your account has been suspended and won’t be reactivated until you pay a fee if you confidently feel you’ve remained up-to-date on all payment method. At the very least, check to confirm your account actually is suspended before taking any action. A scammer could have sent you a phishing email pretending to represent Google in order to rip you off.
Google may occasionally flag your account if it suspects that your credit card is being used fraudulently. Additionally, they view it suspicious when the same billing information is used for numerous accounts.
If Google suspended your Google Ads account because an unauthorized user tried to access it, you can fill out and submit a form to secure your account.
Depending on which country you’re in, you have to be a certain age to have a Google Ads account. Google may suspend your account if it’s discovered you don’t meet the age requirement. However, it’s sometimes possible to get around these requirements by creating a Google account with Family Link. This allows parents to exercise more control over which Google services and products their children can and can’t access.
Mistakes can and do happen. This is as true on Google’s end as it is on yours. Perhaps your account was suspended over a misunderstanding or a misinterpretation. Not every supposed violation of Google’s policies is actually a genuine violation.
If you have a suspended account & think your account was suspended improperly, Google offers a form you can submit to appeal the suspension. However, if you do choose to appeal your account suspension, be extremely careful when filling out the firm, and double-check all information before submitting it. If the submitted form contains any false information, the assumption will typically be that you knowingly attempted to deceive Google. The result? Permanent suspension of your Google Ads account.
It’s also worth noting that sometimes a valid and reasonable appeal will be rejected. Submitting the form to appeal your account’s suspension doesn’t immediately guarantee your account will be restored. If your appeal is rejected, but you genuinely don’t think it should have been, you can contact the Google Ads Team directly. Explaining the circumstances with an actual member of the team instead of hoping the person who reviews your appeal sees your side of the story can give you the chance to more clearly explain the situation.
Once more, though, be completely honest in any discussions you may have! Being caught in even a seemingly minor lie can make Google’s team unwilling to consider any of your other points or arguments.
Along with familiarizing yourself with all the relevant policies and laws regarding how you can (and can’t!) use your Google Ads account, you can also avoid account suspension in such ways as:
This may seem like a no-brainer, but if you’ve been running ads via a Google Ads account for a decent period of time, you might get complacent, no longer making a point of carefully reviewing your ads before submitting them for publication.
Don’t fall into this habit. Whether you create your own ads, or employees create them for you, before submitting an ad for publication, always carefully review it with the specific intention of looking for any issues that would qualify as violations of Google’s policies. If you even suspect an ad might cause problems, either modify it before submitting it, or check Google’s policies again to confirm whether you have reason to be hesitant.
You’re not the only person who may feel Google’s advertising policies are sometimes unclear. On Quora, Reddit, and many other platforms, there are numerous communities of users who ask and answer questions about Google’s ad policies and similar topics. If you’re at all confused about an issue, head to one of these communities and ask others for insights.
However, not every single member of such communities will necessarily be an expert, even if they claim to know what they’re talking about. Use your judgment when determining whether you feel you can trust any given member to provide you with accurate information. Obviously, you can also contact Google to ask a question, although you may have to wait a little bit longer to get an answer than you would on a forum or community page.
Installing a security plugin to protect your site from malware is never a bad idea. Additionally, create the strongest password possible for both your site and your Google Ads account, and periodically change your passwords to avoid unauthorized access.
Of course, hopefully you’ll never have to use any of the information here because your Google Ads account will never be suspended. Just remember that if it ever is, unless you’ve committed a major violation, restoring your account likely won’t be too complicated.
That said, it’s also very wise to learn from this experience! If you have a suspended account of Google Ads, make sure you thoroughly understand why, so you can avoid these types of problems in the future.
If you’ve done any kind of advertising through a Google Ads account, then you are already familiar with the Quality Score related to individual keywords.
That’s old news.
Did you know there is a lot more that goes on with Quality Scores if you do a little digging?
By understanding the intricacies of Google Quality Score, you’ll be able to improve your performance and see positive results.
But why should you care about Quality Scores? Here’s why:
Imagine you went into a library (remember libraries?) and asked for a book recommendation and the librarian just kind of gestured around and said, “any book.”
It would be frustrating and pointless and you’d probably never ask that librarian for recommendations ever again. No one could blame you.
We like things tailored to be relevant to our specific needs and interests. Similarly, Google prefers ads that are relevant to its users’ search queries. How do they know which ads are relevant? By the Quality Score the ads receive.
From your perspective as the advertiser, Quality Score matters because it is one of the two determining factors in determining ad rank.
A higher Quality Score means a higher ad rank and better results. Especially if you’re on a limited budget, increasing your Quality Score can mean optimized returns on ad spend. You’ll be able to beat out competitors with lower Quality Scores even if they have a higher CPC bid.
Who doesn’t like beating out competitors and saving money at the same time?
On the flip side, a low-Quality page Score can end up being detrimental to your account. It means lower ad rank which comes with less traffic and inferior return on investment.
If that doesn’t convince you of the importance of Quality Score, who knows what will.
So now let’s break down the many different kinds of Quality Score so you what’s what.
You didn’t think it would be simple, did you?
This is the standard Quality Score. Scored from 1-10, worst to best, it’s a measure of the performance of searches that are exact matches for your keyword.
The historic performance of a keyword will be the base of a keyword’s QS until it has crossed the impression threshold and achieved a significant number of impressions (thousands). At that point, its performance in your account specifically will then be key.
In your account you can view Quality Score, expected CTR, landing page experience, and ad relevance as well as historic versions of all these metrics. Use them as a guide to gauge the success of your campaign.
Don’t like what you see?
Make sure your keywords aren’t too specific. Consider loosening restrictive match types. Boost bids or budgets to increase your impression share. The numbers should help you decide what the right move is to start seeing better results.
An ad campaign always ends up being a complicated balancing act of many different plates. Sometimes one is going to have to require more attention than the rest but you want to be able to determine which one so you can act accordingly. Don’t want any plates smashing on the floor now do we?
Ad group Quality Score can help direct you to the areas that need attention and improvement in your campaign.
It’s easy to let a low keyword QS pull your eye but if it’s in an ad group with a high average and you have another ad group with a much lower, is it really the best use of your time to focus on that one keyword QS?
It’s up to you but something to think about.
Just like it sounds, the account-level Quality Score covers the historical performance of every keyword and ad in a given account.
The factors that will bring this QS down are many low QS keywords and low click-through rate ads that have performed poorly. Each additional keyword you introduce will also start at a lower Quality Score, compounding the problem.
Older accounts will fare better in account-level Quality Score and as such, it may take months for efforts to improve QS to take effect. Stick with it and the results will come.
Click-through rate is key to determining the ad-level Quality Score for ads in each of your ad groups.
An abundance of low CTR in your ad groups will lead to a low Quality Scores since Google will consider each ad in your score calculation.
If you want to boost this quality score, you can include Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI) in your Search Network campaigns. This can improve the click-through rate by making ads look more relevant to users’ searches.
It shows the exact search in the ad (if within the ad character limits) making it a potentially useful tool. Still, watch out for ads with high CTR but low conversion that could be hurting your ROI.
The landing page. It’s like the foyer of your website. The first impression you make on viewers will very likely determine how the remainder of the interaction proceeds.
So make sure you aren’t putting ugly wallpaper in your foyer, okay?
A quality landing page is important to Google because it shows a website is useful and easy to navigate, just like users want. It should be important to you, too, because it can be a key way to transform viewers into customers,
The landing pages Quality Score will tell you if there’s a problem with your landing page and you should take that seriously. It’s not openly available, but you can find it by hovering over the speech bubble for a keyword’s QS.
Real people will be evaluating your landing pages multiple times so think of what you would score well if you were them and try to include those things.
The Display Network Quality Score isn’t the same as those on the Search Network.
Your Display Network QS is tied to the bidding option you chose. A campaign utilizing the CPM model will have a QS based on landing page quality. A CPC bidding-based campaign will have a QS that factors in landing page quality but also the historical CTR of the ad.
That’s all to say that some trial and error is the right move here.
You can improve your CTR by experimenting with image ads and responsive ads and their placement. Once you find the right ads on the right sites, your score and your success will improve.
For easier management, separate your Display Network campaigns from your Search Management campaigns.
Google says that mobile Quality Score is calculated the same way as any device platform. One minor difference, though, is that the distance between the business and the user is taken into consideration, when possible.
Again, separation can be helpful. Separating a campaign that targets all devices into mobile and desktop campaigns may increase your Quality Score. If nothing else, it might give you some greater insight into each Quality Score.
And that’s all the different types of Quality Scores. A breeze, right?
There’s a lot to know about Quality Scores but somehow there’s just as much that you shouldn’t know or believe, anyway. Don’t get caught up in any of the following misconceptions about Quality Score:
You would think this is true but Google will adjust according to differences in ad position.
Since Google doesn’t want a self-reinforcing cycle where ads with high positions naturally have a higher click-through rate and thus get a higher Quality Score and rank higher and so on and so on, their formula breaks this up.
This was mentioned earlier but these Quality scores are independent of each other. One decreasing won’t pull the other down and likewise, one increasing won’t pull up the other.
The criteria are different and the networks are, too. Focus on each of them separately based on the factors that control them. It’ll save you some headaches.
Your Quality Score doesn’t go down just because you pause ads or keywords. It doesn’t affect the QS at all because that’s based on performance.
The ads aren’t active so they’re no performance to be graded on and make the Quality Score decrease or increase. It gets paused, too.
Here’s a list of things you should do to avoid or improve a low-quality score
Speaking of account audits, you may need a professional to help you will all this.
If, after reading this article, you’ve decided that dealing with your Quality Score is simply too much to handle, no one could blame you.
For that very reason, there are companies full of people who spend their time handling Quality Score and other ad campaign features for you.
One of those companies (the best of them, if we do say so ourselves) is PPC.co.
Let us handle all of your Google Ads management so you can stick to what you do best: running your business and keeping your customers happy.
Get in contact with us today to get a free, comprehensive pay-per-click audit and advertising assessment.
Google is the biggest internet search provider in most online markets and responsible for generating over 80% of desktop search traffic.
Businesses vie for Google rankings by optimizing their website for organic search so they can rank higher in the search results. But not everyone has the time or resources to do that, as it can take months for a website to climb up the search results organically.
The only way to dominate search results from the get-go is by running a Google ad campaign that shows your site right at the very top of the search results. You can also choose to display your ads on other websites in the Display Network and the AdSense program.
However, to run an effective ad campaign, you have to be quick and definitive in the way you approach it. Simply creating an account, bidding on ads, and then letting the campaign run on autopilot doesn’t help. You have to be vigilant in tracking your campaign progress and adjust according to the changing trends.
It is best to be on top of all the trending searches and keywords to truly take advantage of this platform. According to reports, the advertising revenue of Google sites amounted to US$123.83 billion in 2020, which highlights its importance and impact on businesses.
We’ll explore all the reasons why it is a good idea to update your google ad campaigns. But here’s the deal: all these reasons are dependent on the way these campaigns work.
Google ads are essentially an auction system, where your ad campaign’s success depends on the quality of your ad and the amount you bid. And this happens every time a user searches for a keyword that you want your ad to be associated with.
The following factors affect the quality score of your ad:
You can see that your ad’s quality, relevance, and appropriateness play a significant role in getting it a high-quality score. It is essential to achieve this metric because Google or search engines often lowers the cost per click for ad campaigns with a higher quality score and gives them higher-than-usual exposure.
Before we delve into the factors that affect the frequency with which you should update your campaigns, let’s look at the reasons why you need to do so in the first place.
In the recent past, Google has made several new feature additions to AdWords and revised its ad platform. This includes new extensions addition or altering the ad format, which helps businesses with their marketing strategies.
Naturally, if you don’t use these while the rest take advantage of them, you are bound to fall behind.
You might get complacent about your campaign’s success and believe it’s alright to let it run on autopilot, but your competitors think differently. They are always trying out new features, testing their search ads, and expanding their campaign budget. This can give them an edge over you if your campaigns aren’t evolving right alongside theirs.
While previously, people used their laptops and desktops to search for something, they now use their smartphones or Google devices. As a result, their phrases and also the way they search continuously change. If you want to keep up with this progress, it’s essential to update your Google ad campaign regularly.
Make every click on your ad count towards your overall marketing and lead generation goals. Take a more informed approach to running a campaign so you know that only targeted audiences click on your ad.
It is essential to go over the search terms and find ones that have the potential to trigger the ads you post. Sometimes specific phrases provide barely any value addition to businesses. You can label these as negative so that they don’t appear in the future keywords list.
It might be hard to believe, but even huge businesses aren’t immune to such issues. Brands spend tons of money on online promotions, so prospects are informed about them. However, when prospects get the coupon, they find out it has been expired.
For instance, a potential customer could click on a sale ad for your brand but find out it has long ended once it opens up.
Clicks on ads don’t necessarily depict a campaign’s success until you get the visitors to take action. It is essential to test your ads to see if they are working effectively or not.
When you improve your google ads ctr (click-through rates), you get more leads and improve your ads’ Quality Score, lowering the cost you entail per click.
The frequency with which you update your Google Ad campaigns depends on your budget and the industry you are in. Depending on these factors and how long you run your ad campaign, you can update your ad campaign weekly or stretch it out over more time.
Here are a few factors that affect the frequency of your Google Ad campaign update.
The amount of money you can spend on your Google Ads determines your activity. You are likely to dedicate more time and effort to your ads if you spend $70,000 monthly rather than $700.
Like any project you start, you need to put in extra effort at the beginning of an ad campaign, as it takes more work to establish it and ensure its success.
You get to decide on the target keywords you want to use which have the highest potential to convert. Additionally, you make new ads and update the landing page they are posted on. But even before doing any of that, you need to choose a bidding option for your ads.
Although Google stresses using an automated system, you shouldn’t start out this way because you need data to work effectively. As a beginner, you should start with manual bidding and then move to the automated one.
The number of leads you get to your business is an indication of the success of your campaign. If you have many leads, your campaign is already a success, and you don’t have to be highly active.
Having said that, you cannot leave your account, no matter the success rate of your campaign, because more success gives you the opportunity to build on it.
However, if your ad campaign isn’t performing well, you have to get involved in it to work on the issues and bring it to a place where you envision it. Consequently, you need to test your Google ads and keyword choices thoroughly.
In fact, with Google Ads, you can check the optimization scores for your campaign, courtesy of Google. In case you get a low score, you’ll know you have to work on it.
One of the most significant factors in determining the frequency with which you update your campaign is the number of keywords you target.
When you target many keywords at one time, it generally means you have several ad group and a significant quantity of ads. Additionally, more keywords translate into having more data for review.
Here are a few things you need to do with your monthly ad campaign regularly:
Initially, if you decide on manual bidding, you should monitor the positions of your keywords. Google no longer shows the average keyword position but gives the top search. This shows the frequency with which Google ads appear in the top spots over organic listings.
It is essential to be a part of this top ad group, if not the top spot.
It is essential to keep an eye out for new keywords that you can test, which is convenient to do so through Google’s plus sign option, which displays a list where you can pick new phrases from.
However, be aware of the fact that using new keywords through this method will get you irrelevant clicks because of the broad match.
Your ultimate campaign goal is to either create more brand awareness or get new leads. If it is to get more leads, then ensure accurate tracking of conversions. You need exact numbers, whether it is in the case of tracking calls or goals.
It is vital to choose the correct conversion attributes to get the type of leads you are looking for. If you don’t get the results you are looking for, it’s time to alter your campaign.
No matter how amazing your Average click-through rate (CTR) may seem, it can always be improved. You can have an ad groups consisting of a responsive ad and three expanded text ones.
Every month introduce a new ad and pause the ones that perform the least, which will actually help you beat your best ad, instead of the paused one.
It is always best to pause an ad with at least a hundred impressions. With a high-budget campaign that gets thousands of impressions daily, you can introduce a new ad in every group every few weeks.
Google’s recommendation about your campaign and score provision is an essential feature that you can review. You shouldn’t accept all of them, but it is beneficial to consider any new keywords it gives or features you didn’t know of.
Review your search term report regularly to find any new phrases to use and eliminate one’s that don’t do well.
Add such words as negative keywords to prevent them from recurring. Review this several times a week initially; then, you can space it out over months once you get the wasted spend.
If you’ve been inactive for a while, Google can take action for you.
New Google ads are usually suggested under recommendations. Depending on your landing page settings, these can be automatically added to your ad campaign. It might seem like a helpful technique, but it is common for these Google ads to be terrible. These Google ads generally use the company name as the first title and don’t fill in the other ad elements.
You might not know this, but Google also tests other recommendations addition, and you can find keywords that you haven’t added to your account.
Even if you choose automated bidding, there’s still a lot that needs to get done. This includes monitoring your search terms, reviewing recommendations, and developing new ads.
Furthermore, it would be best if you kept an eye on your monthly budget and conversion costs. You should get improved results over time; otherwise, you should review your automated bidding settings.
To run an effective marketing campaign, you have to monitor, review, and alter accordingly continuously. This includes simple actions like site audits or bigger ones like ad alterations.
Google Ads is a robust platform that gives businesses a chance to generate more leads, track their ad performance, develop strategies to stand out from their competitors, and eventually boost sales.
However, as straightforward as this approach may seem, you have to be active in how you use it. It is essential to constantly keep an eye on new trends, keywords, and searches and tweak your ad campaigns accordingly, especially if they aren’t running successfully.
You can never be complacent with your advertising techniques, and Improve your Google Ads ctr is one of the best ways to stay above your competition.
If you are new to Google Ads, rest assured that you’ve chosen the right PPC ad platform for your business.
Going by leading PPC marketing KPIs, Google Ads offers some of the highest conversion Value and ROI.
Still, it is important to truly understand what you are getting into before spending/ad spend significant amounts of money and time on a Google Ads strategy.
It takes much work to get best results that can be studied and analyzed to tweak the process for better outcomes.
An essential part of this endeavor is to estimate, track and dramatically improve conversions.
A conversion value is any action taken by a user at your behest. For example, they request a demo, sign up for a trial, buy something or submit their emails because that’s what you drive them to do.
This article will discuss the right way to estimate conversions in Google Ads.
But before that, let’s get familiar with the basics.
Paid marketing is one of the easiest ways to let your prospects discover your products, service, or business through digital advertisements on the SERPs.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) or Pay-Per-View (PPV) options allow businesses to purchase ads that are great at targeting the right audiences. Since it is an inorganic way of getting credibility, ranking, and ad traffic for your business site, it reaches your audience on a priority basis so that you don’t have to wait for your customer to find you through the search engine. Your website or product advertisement will pop up on the SERPs as soon as a related query is entered.
Google ads work because more than 70 percent of users prefer to see ads personalized according to their interests. In addition to that, over 65 percent of searchers have no qualms about clicking on paid ads. That’s why smart PPC campaigns focus on people who are actively looking to buy and not merely researching a product or service.
As businesses continue to battle for rankings, conversion value, automation, and personalization, the stats clearly show that paid marketing technique is the quickest way to go!
Paid marketing includes the display of ads on SERPs (search engine results pages) like Google and Bing and social media channels (like Facebook).
Businesses and marketers select a medium for advertisement –i.e., Google Ads or Facebook. Then they define their targeted audience on the web. This audience is categorized by demographics, preferences, age, location, search entries, previous purchases, and pages visited.
The method is commonly known as PPC (Pay-Per-Click). This means the advertiser has to pay for each click on their advertisements. To place an ad for the SERPs, a business must pay a certain amount; once the payment is made, the ad campaign goes live. Your ad starts to display on the SERPs whenever a related term or keyword is entered into the search bar on Google.
Now that you know all about paid ads and how they work, here is how Google Ads work and what it offers to track more conversions and estimate the total conversions.
Google AdWord’s, now known as Google Ads, allows marketers to create ads and run them on the Google search engine to reach their audience. It works for PPC pay-per-click advertising, where you have to pay for every click your visitors click.
The rate-per-click is always varying; depending on several/many factors, marketers only have to set their budget for their campaign. The ads remain live until their budget ends, and it ends when the entire amount is used up.
Google Ads is a robust program, and it gets even more potent with every update. Since it has been improvising with the latest technology and AI, it also allows you to track your conversions. It is the only medium for creating highly profitable Google Ads and tracking conversions.
The fantastic conversion trackings feature of the program allows you to post and track the ad metric in the most simplified form. It offers various data for the business to optimize their next ads according to the data retrieved from a previous ad campaign.
One thing that plays a significant role in PPC ads is conversions. Without Google Ads and its conversion trackings installed, you will never know how many clicks you got each day or from each ad campaign. Also, it will tell you how many clicks resulted in leads, sales, and so much more. You can use this information to optimize your next campaign with utmost perfection.
When running a PPC campaign, businesses need to track and estimate their conversions after each movement. Here is why:
Ever since the industries have started to grow with digitalization, Google has been trying to bridge the gap between businesses and their goals with intelligent data and insights. When it comes to conversions with Google tools, Google has all the knowledge of the universe. Also, with the innovating AI and machine learning Google has become even more powerful and more intelligent over time.
Thus, working with Google tools is getting intellectual data from the entire population of the world. It records all the user behavior history and so much more. This data comes into play when you place the ads with the targeted audience and reap the result without any effort. It also offers smart tracking tools for paid ads, which helps estimate the conversions a business gets from each paid campaign.
Since all of our devices are linked with Google and have Google accounts logged in, it can access all your information from your credentials to your location. Considering the power it has, clicks are just a minor thing, which Google can easily track. This is how it gathers all the conversions that happen. Even if you open an ad through your mobile browser but make the purchase from a desktop, Google will know it!
This is where the conversion trackings tool comes into play. We went over numerous things to emphasize the importance of the tool and how it helps you determine the estimated rate of conversions. Once you run the ad, you can get to know about each click, lead, conversion value or sale, based on your own criteria of conversions.
To better utilize the conversion trackings tool, you need to understand each of the above things in this article. Then decide on the actions that you count as a conversion. Whether it is when someone visits your website, call you, sign up for a newsletter, call you, and fill out an online survey or when someone contacts you online.
Here are the three sources you can use to identify your conversion value criteria:
Estimating conversions today is easier than ever before. Here is how you can do it with Google Ads resources:
Cross-device conversions are noted as a user clicks an ad on one device but completes the conversion value on another. You can use the insights extracted from Google Analytics based on user data.
This data comes from users who have either signed in to their Google analytics accounts and/or have their ad personalization feature turned on.
Google Ads exports this cross-device and same-device data from analytics to Google Ads campaigns and shows it to you through the conversion trackings tool. Later on, you can use this data for your PPC bidding. However, to automate the conversion exports (even with AI) to Google Ads, you can Activate Google Signals and Import the Analytics in Google Ads.
To track the webpage conversions, you need to add a conversion trackings tag to your website. This tag will gather all the insights of the click-through rate. It will track the activity on your ad and the website and let you know if someone clicked on your ad and visited your website. Also, it follows the activity of the users when they visit your website and complete a conversion value action.
These conversion actions may include purchase, sign-up, contact information form, call, reaching out to the support for further assistance, or anything you list as valuable.
However, this only happens when you create a website conversion actions in your Google Ads account, you’ll get a conversion trackings tag to add to your website. Also, you will need to identify a conversion value page on your website, which can be a thank you page, after a completed action.
This resource helps you track the CTA usage that involves a call on a number mentioned on your business website.
You can use Google Analytics/Phone Analytics and reporting to enable the instant tracking of website call conversions. By doing this, you will be able to access insights when someone uses your on-site number to call you after clicking any of your ads.
This feature will help you track ad leads generated by phone calls to your website number.
These phone call conversion action will help you see how efficacy your ads lead to phone call conversions. Since the number is linked to your website and the ads, you will be able to track all the leads through conversion action tracking.
Also, you with this source, you can analyze the keywords, ad groups, ad, and campaigns that lead to more call conversions.
For setting up call conversion actions, you will need a Google Ads account, a conversion actions, and the addition of the conversion action tag to your business website.
If you use Google Ads to promote mobile apps, you can use Google Ads’ conversion trackings tool for download tracking. It will help you how many downloads do your ads lead to.
The tool will track when your ads are clicked, leading to app installations and in-app activity. However, due to the difference in OS, iOS tracking might be impacted. So using Google Analytics is essential. You would also need to keep track of the apple framework’s updates to ensure maximum conversion trackings.
You can track mobile app conversions with Firebase or import mobile app conversions from a third-party app like analytics tools or Google Analytics.
You can track various types of mobile app conversions, including:
Google Ads is a powerful tool that enables you to run paid ad campaigns and offers insights through Google Analytics, gathered all in one place. Also, it allows you to analyze the different rates of conversion through all mediums that display your paid ad campaign.
However, if you are still wondering the right formula to estimate the total conversions, here it goes:
You only need to track and conclude all of the conversion mentioned above sources with the help of Google Ads. And then, you need to add them all to estimate the total conversions.
Estimated Total Conversions = Current Online Conversions + Cross-Device Conversions + Website Conversions + On-site call conversions.
Given the fact, these complexities can lead you to a massive fiasco if you set up a PPC campaign based on inaccurate data and insights. Thus, analyzing and estimating your total conversions is critical for a business and its budget. However, if you need to run a Paid Ads campaign, you must seek the help of a professional to avoid any financial damage.
Succeeding in eCommerce PPC doesn’t merely involve selling quality products.
True, that’s critical (you won’t have many loyal customers if your products don’t offer actual value, after all), but it’s not the only way you can boost sales.
In a competitive marketplace, you need to stand out in the crowd by running pay-per-click ad campaigns through Google Or PPC ads and Amazon.
You also need to apply tested strategies that align with user behavior.
Consider the following examples.
If you’re trying to grow an eCommerce business with a PPC advertising campaign, these tips will help you achieve your goals.
Let’s get the obvious tactics out of the way first! Different types of Google Shopping ads offer different features and serve different purposes. Google Shopping Ads allow you to showcase your products and directly encourage users to purchase them. They also have a relatively strong chance of showing up as sponsored links when users perform relevant Google searches. Naturally, they’re ideal for eCommerce PPC.
Depending on the nature of your business, some of your products may be more popular among customers during specific times of the year. For example, if you’re a digital marketing /PPC marketing apparel brand, you shouldn’t expect your winter coats to typically sell best in summer.
That’s a basic example. The main point to keep in mind, though, is that you want to be prepared to leverage seasonal trends instead of scrambling to make seasonally-appropriate Google Shopping ads at the last minute. That means even when it’s not winter, you should be developing Google Shopping ads for the products that sell best in winter. You can always make minor changes later before publishing them.
Most marketers understand the value of using the right keywords when designing PPC ads/PPC advertising for Google. However, while including the “right” keywords in your descriptions and ad copy is important, it’s also smart to specify any negative keyword’s you wish to associate with your ad.
Negative keyword’s help you boost sales by telling Google’s algorithm what you’re not offering. This minimizes the chances of users with little interest in your products seeing your ads, thus allowing you to optimize your paid search budget.
For example, maybe you’re selling physical desk calendars. As such, your target audience doesn’t consist of people looking for online or downloadable calendars. Make sure you’re not wasting money advertising to them by including “online calendars” and similar terms in your list of negative keyword’s.
That said, you should keep in mind that just as making a list of keywords involves some trial and error, so does deciding which negative keywords to specify when creating ads. Monitor your eCommerce PPC campaigns’ performance regularly and update your list of negative keywords whenever you come up with new ideas.
With each year, it becomes increasingly common for online shoppers to browse eCommerce sites and make purchases via mobile devices. Remember this when designing your ads. At least some of your PPC ads/PPC advertising should be designed specifically for customers shopping on smartphones and small tablets.
There are various ways you can incorporate mobile-friendly elements into your ad designs. The specific choices you make will at least to some degree depend on what you’re selling. In general, ads that are designed to look impressive and clean on mobile devices strike a balance between catching a user’s attention with vibrant imagery without overwhelming them. For example, an ad featuring a large chunk of text may be somewhat difficult to read on a small mobile screen. Mobile-friendly ads should instead be designed to convey essential information efficiently and clearly. As always, you should also A/B test different ads to get a better sense of which yield higher levels of engagement with mobile device users.
You may already appreciate the importance of creating PPC ads/PPC advertising to highlight sales when you plan on running them. A general rule of thumb that tends to hold true states that when potential customers are told they can save money if they act fast, they’re more inclined to make purchases.
However, along with buying items when they’re on sale, your customers may be able to save money in various other ways when buying your products. Perhaps if they spend a certain amount of money they’re rewarded with a discount. Maybe you offer discounts to users when they sign up for your email list. Or, you might have a customer loyalty program that allows repeat customers to save money.
When planning eCommerce PPC campaigns, review the products you’re selling and make a list of any promotions, discounts, and other such money-saving options that may be associated with said products. Whenever it makes sense to do so, touch on these money-saving opportunities in your ads. You’ll likely find that sales increase accordingly.
Additionally, even when an item isn’t necessarily available at a discounted price, it’s still often smart to mention its price in the title of an ad anyway. While this isn’t a universal rule, as there are instances when mentioning the price in the main ad copy may feel forced, in many instances it’s wise to let a potential customer know how much you’re charging for a product right away.
The fact that a lead considered buying one of your products but ended up not actually making a purchase doesn’t always mean they’ve decided for good that they’re not interested in buying a product. There are many, many reasons online shoppers don’t make purchases right away when browsing items. Often, they’re simply distracted. When they click away from a product page, they might tell themselves they’ll complete a purchase later, only to forget to actually do so.
Luckily, these potential sales are by no means lost forever. You can use Google’s Dynamic Remarketing features to show relevant PPC ads/PPC advertising to users who engaged with your brand or products in the past when they visit sites within the Google Display Network. This is an easy but effective way to improve your ROI.
Segmenting your audience and creating different types of Google ads to appeal to different types of customers is one of the most well-known ways to improve a PPC ad campaign. That said, some eCommerce PPC marketers make the mistake of only segmenting their audiences once, then never returning to make adjustments based on what they’ve learned from their eCommerce PPC campaigns.
This deprives them of an opportunity to squeeze more profit out of their ads! When you monitor your PPC campaigns performance, consider if you can glean any new insights regarding audience tastes, behaviors, and other such factors in order to segment your audience even more effectively.
For example, after reviewing a PPC campaigns performance, you might find that leads who live in one particular city respond (whether positively or negatively) differently to certain PPC ads/PPC advertising when compared to those from a different city. If this was a behavior you hadn’t predicted when first segmenting your audience, now that you’re aware of it, you can segment your audience even further to boost sales.
Another mistake that’s too common in digital marketing/PPC marketing? Only creating new Google ads when you “need” them.
For instance, you’re well aware of the fact that you should create new Google ads when promoting new products, when running sales, and when your existing Google ads are stale and simply need to be refreshed. However, it’s worth remembering that there is no such thing as a truly “perfect” ad. Even if you’re not completely sure how right now, it’s almost certain that each and every one of your ads could be improved upon in various ways.
Constantly creating new Google ads should be one of your top priorities. True, you can’t devote all your time to generating ads, as doing so will prevent you from focusing on other important business tasks, but you should probably focus on creating new ad content when you have the time to do so more than you currently are.
Creating new Google ads naturally gives you more chances to test them. The more ad variants you test, the more you’ll learn about which strategies are most effective. That said, even when you aren’t actively running all the news ads you’ve recently generated, consistently engaging in the ad generation process will ensure those creative muscles remain strong.
Additionally, it’s helpful for very practical reasons to have a large number of Google ads available on the backburner. When you reach a point where it is necessary to incorporate new Google ads into your PPC campaigns, you’ll already have plenty of unused content to experiment with.
The Internet is brimming with potential distractions. Again, the list of distractions that could prevent an otherwise interested lead from making a purchase is extremely long. When a potential customer clicks on one of your ads, you typically have a very limited amount of time to make a sale.
Keep this in mind when reviewing your current PPC ads/PPC advertising and generating new ones. Your ads should send leads directly to a product page (or other page from which they can easily make a purchase) right away. If there are too many steps between the point when someone clicks on an ad and the point where a purchase is complete, you’re losing out on sales.
Researching your competitors’ keywords and using them in your own PPC ads (when it makes sense to do so) is generally a smart online advertising strategy. That said, there are certain keywords the competition may be using that you should not incorporate: branded keywords.
It may be tempting to use a competitor’s branded keywords in your PPC ads not because you want to deceive a potential customer by making them think you’re selling another brand’s products, but simply because you want to target customers who are interested in brands similar to your own. For instance, maybe you’re selling a more affordable alternative to a popular product, and you want to let potential customers know about how much money they could be saving if they bought an item from your brand instead of the competition.
The problem is, branded keywords tend to only be valuable when used with the relevant brand’s ads. The attention your PPC ads receive when you rely on the competition’s branded keywords will primarily come from low value leads who are probably already planning on buying an item from their chosen brand. You’ll have little success convincing them to buy your products instead.
Properly incorporating branded keywords into your PPC ads in a way that’s ethical is also, well, hard. Even if your intentions aren’t malicious, if a competitor finds you’re using their branded keywords excessively in your own ads, they can complain to Google or any other advertising platform you’re using. The consequences may include account suspension, cease and desist orders, and more.
Some classic eCommerce PPC tips will always be relevant. Some grow even more relevant over time.
For example, today’s online shoppers tend to be very savvy when it comes to their understanding of advertising tactics. Your potential customers know that just because you’re describing your products in a way that makes them sound desirable and valuable, that doesn’t necessarily mean your own description can be trusted.
Surveys often reveal that online shoppers are increasingly prioritizing customer reviews when determining whether to buy products. They may not trust a company to honestly describe a product’s benefits, but they trust other customers.
You can appeal to that trust by including language from real customers reviews in your ads. You don’t need to do so with every single ad you create, but you should highlight customer reviews at least to some degree from time to time.
However, while these tips absolutely will improve the effectiveness of your eCommerce PPC advertising campaigns now, remember that best practices are always evolving and changing.
You need to ensure the success of your eCommerce business by continuing to read blogs like this one. Staying on top of the latest best practices is one of the simplest yet smartest ways to remain competitive.
As global digitization accelerates, organizations realize the impending need to invest in digital advertising.
In 2018, the total national ad spend exceeded $125 billion – and it is predicted to continue to rise YOY:
With rising expenditure comes increased scrutiny.
With cutthroat competition, not every ad campaign can drive conversions and offer adequate ROI.
So, how do you know if the money you’re investing is generating revenue or not?
This is where ROAS comes in.
ROAS, or return on ad spend, is a metric for online advertisers, enabling them to track the money they make.
By calculating ROAS, you will know how many dollars you earn for each dollar spent. Additionally, it will determine which ad strategies and techniques work well so that you can apply those to your other ad campaigns.
ROI, or return on investment, is a business-centric metric used to evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing efforts as a whole.
It helps you understand how ads are contributing to your overall business finances and profit.
On the other hand, ROAS assesses the performance of specific campaigns, ad groups, or keywords.
As it focuses on individual advertising campaigns, ROAS is an ad-centric metric. It measures the gross revenue generated based on each dollar spent on ads. This way, you can learn which of your paid ad campaigns are useful and which ones you need to stop pouring money into.
To calculate ROAS for Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads, you need to know the total PPC revenue generated by your ad strategy and the total cost of managing your ad strategy.
This includes revenue you earn from all different sources, such as product purchases and lead conversions.
Similarly, your cost includes all the expenses you incur when running your ads, such as Cost-Per-Click (CPC), management fees, software upgrades, and partner/vendor costs. Additionally, if you have purchased clicks and impressions, they will add to your expenses.
Now that you have these two figures, you just have to plug them into the ROAS formula.
There are two formulas you can use:
Divide the revenue you made from your ad campaign with the amount you spent to run your ad.
So, for example, you spend $200 on a PPC campaign and make $400 in return. Adding these values to the formula will give you a ROAS of $2. This means you’re making $2 for every $1 you spend.
However, calculating ROAS through this formula only gives you a general overview. It doesn’t tell you the overall profitability of your campaign.
So, for example, you spend $200 and make $400. But your vendor fees also cost $50. Then, the ROAS you calculate will not accurately depict the return you get.
For this reason, it’s better to use the second formula.
If you subtract your cost from the revenue before dividing the result by the cost, it will give you an adequate ROAS.
This formula doesn’t require you to evaluate any new values since it only needs the total revenue and cost. And plugging values in this formula will help you determine your marketing budgets effectively.
ROAS is a metric that needs to be tracked regularly. Ideally, you should track your ROAS throughout the ad campaign instead of at one particular time.
Although there are many indicators you can utilize to assess the success of your marketing campaigns, the end goal of your business is to earn more money.
This means tracking conversions and sales isn’t enough on its own; you need to fit them within your ROAS tracking mechanism.
But first, you need to calculate your revenue. And you can do it by following the two steps below.
The first step is to track your conversions. And you can easily do that on online advertising platforms like Google Ads, Facebook, Twitter, and Bing Ads.
All you need to do is use these platforms to set up an ad campaign and conversion tracking. If you’re using Google Ads, you can even track phone call conversions.
This way, you will know which clicks on your PPC ads led to which purchases. In addition, you will stay updated on your conversion rates and purchases that result from ad clicks.
The next step is to connect your online advertising platform to customer relationship management (CRM) software.
By doing this, you can tie all your marketing data to a new lead. Hence, when a lead converts into a customer, you’ll know exactly which marketing efforts led to the sale.
So, by tracking your conversions and sales, you get access to your revenue data. Simultaneously, the advertising software you use will detail your ad spend.
Now, all you need to do is plug the values in any of the two ROAS formulas, and you’ll know whether your money is being spent right or not.
ROAS enables you to gather valuable insights – based on which you can make informed marketing decisions.
Since the final goal of advertising is to make money, calculating ROAS should be a priority. Even though conversion rate and click-through rates are essential, they don’t guide you regarding changes to your advertising model.
In addition, knowing your ROAS can help you do the following:
Using other metrics alone will not give you complete insights, so you will not make informed marketing decisions.
Think about click data – it tells you the best click-through rate (CTR) and the lowest cost-per-click (CPC). So based on this data, you might think you can evaluate which of your campaigns are successful. But that’s not possible because CTR and CPC don’t tell you the quality of clicks and the traffic you’re getting.
Similarly, conversion data helps you track conversions and point out areas of weakness in your strategy. But it will not determine the quality of traffic and leads you are receiving.
However, ROAS ties all these metrics together by providing you with actual numbers you’re earning and spending on each channel.
Additionally, various factors result in a lower CPC or conversion rate, but that doesn’t mean your campaign is unsuccessful. In fact, such campaigns can still have high profitability. But if you don’t calculate ROAS, you won’t know that.
And then you will make decisions that will cost more than you gain.
A good ROAS target depends on many factors, including your industry, average CPC, and profit margins. This means a satisfactory ROAS varies from business to business.
In addition, a good ROAS differs from campaign to campaign. For instance, campaigns that aim to raise awareness, grow subscriptions and build a following generally have a low ROAS.
But if you want to drive a greater number of conversions and sales, you should expect a higher ROAS.
Still, no general rule can determine how high your ROAS should be. But, most businesses do aim for an overall 4:1 ratio.
Getting $4 for every $1 spent gives you enough money to keep your business afloat or even make a profit.
Here is a breakdown of different ROAS targets you should be aiming for at different phases of your business:
Most businesses think if they make a sale that amounts as much as they spent on marketing, they will break even.
But that’s not true because when you factor in all your variable and fixed costs, you are likely making a loss.
So, making $1 for each dollar you spend on your PPC ad campaign is not enough.
Let’s say you spend $100 on marketing and make a $200 sale. It means you are earning $2 for every dollar you spend.
But, 2x ROAS is still low because fixed costs are generally high, resulting in a deficit.
As long as you get some consistent sales, you can break even with a 3x ROAS.
For example, you spend $50 on marketing, which results in a $150 sale. So, now, you have an added $100, which you can use to cover additional ad-running costs.
4:1 ROAS is where you start making a profit, which is why most businesses aim for at least a 4x ROAS.
When each dollar spent gives you $4 in return, you have enough money to make a profit. But ultimately, that depends on your business model and costs.
So, if you have very high variable and fixed costs, it may not result in a profit. But that is often not the case.
With a 5x ROAS, you can start using your marketing practices to grow your business.
At this stage, you’re making enough profit that you can afford to invest more in your marketing and customize various goal-specific ad campaigns.
In the end, the ideal ROAS for your business depends on your ROAS targets, business expenses, and marketing goals.
Also, if you have different PPC campaigns running simultaneously, set separate ROAS targets for each. Then, calculate their ROAS individually to see if they are bringing in enough cash.
But if your ROAS is still low, look into all other metrics and practices to identify the reasons behind it. Then, when you know which strategies are working, you can implement those across other campaigns.
Not being able to meet your ROAS target can be frustrating. But a low ROAS doesn’t always mean that your campaign is a complete failure.
Sometimes, you can make small changes to your current campaign to increase ROAS.
Some tweaks you can make are:
Placing an ad at the right location is key to attracting quality traffic. So if you have a low ROAS, consider changing the location of your ads.
For example, try placing them on e-commerce sites or social networking sites. Additionally, you can change the layout for your ad, such as converting a banner ad with a pop-up.
Your ad copy should gauge the user’s attention, resulting in the maximum number of ad clicks.
Similarly, your ad copy should be optimized for SEO so that your ad can show up organically in search results.
A helpful tip to follow is to use specific, long-tail keywords that are relevant to your brand.
For more detail, please visit our post outlining and weighing the difference between SEO and PPC.
Targeting 56.16% of all web traffic that comes through mobile phones can boost your ROAS.
If your advertising campaign is limited to desktops and isn’t generating high revenue, you should consider running mobile ads.
Use your ROAS to eliminate campaigns that are performing extremely poorly. Instead, use that money and effort on campaigns that show growth potential.
At the same time, try not to get carried away with spending on ad campaigns. So, place a cap on your budget for PPC campaigns because lots of click-throughs are only beneficial if your budget supports them.
Return on ad spend (ROAS) is a valuable metric that businesses of all sizes can use. And it helps you allocate adequate budgets for numerous ad campaigns.
Globally, 31% of all online users click on ads, which means investing in online advertising has a good chance of increasing leads. But to make the most of your marketing efforts, you need to strategize accordingly.
By regularly tracking your ROAS, you will make informed, data-driven decisions that will eventually boost your revenue.
Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns operate much differently than SEO campaigns.
While you expect SEO campaigns to take their time to bear fruit, PPC(Pay Per Click) campaigns are expected to produce almost immediate results.
SEO campaigns are easy to scale, depending on the type of effort you put in.
PPC campaigns can spiral out of control and take your PPC budget with it if you don’t properly manage them.
When the time comes when your campaign is successful, you’ll need to explore ways to scale it and make every dollar count.
However, scaling your PPC is a concentrated effort.
To accomplish this task, this guide will teach you all you need to know about growing your campaign to new heights.
Before you decide to scale your PPC (Pay per click )campaign, it’s important to make sure that everything is in working order.
Also, you need to be sure whether or not scaling your campaign is the best choice for your business moving forward.
Below are some essential questions you should ask and answer before growing your Pay per click campaign.
One of the most common causes of PPC(Pay Per Click) campaign failures is that the landing page or website hasn’t been built. It can be frustrating to spend hundreds and even thousands of dollars every month, achieve impressions and clicks on your ads, only for them to visit your website and leave.
PPC campaigns are only a means to an end. This means that your website or landing page needs to actually work properly before continuing with your campaign. To make sure your website is working and heighten your campaign’s conversion rate, here are the following steps you should take:
You wouldn’t believe how many PPC campaigns aren’t configured with Google Analytics. Some forget to install this feature, and others figure it’s not very important. Nonetheless, Google Analytics is instrumental in tracking conversions down your sales funnel.
With Google Analytics, you can find out the exact keywords customers are using to find an ad. You can also check on important SEO benchmarks such as dwell time (average session time), bounce rate, and more.
Google Analytics is most important in observing how leads react to your website when they’re away from your ads. This is the type of information you won’t find on Google or Facebook Ads.
When you run an eCommerce store, dealing with B2C clients, there’s no need for investing in a customer relationship management (CRM) platform. After all, people are going to click on your ad, visit your store, buy, and leave.
When you’re targeting B2B clients, you have to groom them before they’re ready to buy. Before you scale your campaign, you have to make sure that your business is ready to deal with a sudden influx of new prospects.
Thus, be sure to research and invest in a premium CRM platform that aligns with your business’ needs.
Once you’ve made the decision to begin scaling your PPC campaign, it’s time to put in the work to make your changes happen. By following these 10 convenient steps, you can begin the process of growing your PPC campaigns.
If you haven’t done so already, invest sufficient resources into creating a landing page that can visibly attract prospects delivered from your paid ads and convert them into paying customers.
Landing pages are the most important aspect of any PPC campaign, as they are responsible for improving conversions. Therefore, it’s in your best interest to hire a proficient copywriter and UX designer to ensure that your landing page design is a success.
When your landing page is complete, conduct regular A/B tests and perform tweaks to make sure that it will perform it’s best over time.
This may seem obvious, but increasing your ad budget is one of the most sure-fire ways of scaling your PPC campaign. The more you’re willing to spend on PPC ads, the more placements you can earn on the internet and social media.
Let’s say that your competitor is spending $1,000 a month on Google Ads. If you’re not prepared to match or exceed their investment, then you can’t expect to achieve similar results.
Granted, you can achieve remarkable results with any reasonable ad budget if you’re creative enough. But, if your competitors are allocating more money towards foundational keywords that are bringing in vast amounts of traffic, then you’re always going to be at a disadvantage.
As a result, make the decision to increase your budget at a rate that’s financially feasible for your business.
A lot of businesses spend a lot of time, effort, and money targeting new prospects. Depending on your industry, some people may not be interested in learning more about a product outright.
After all, paid ads aren’t really considered to be an inbound marketing strategy. You’re essentially paying for your ads to be placed in front of a person if they type in a familiar keyword.
This doesn’t mean that the person is automatically interested in buying a product or service. For this reason, you need a contingency plan to subliminally keep your business in the minds of prospects who aren’t yet ready to convert.
Remarketing in PPC campaigns helps you to achieve this. Google Ads allows you to structure existing campaigns to retarget people who have viewed your ads and are on different websites:
This allows advertisers to use an internet user’s cookies to send ads even when people are on completely different websites:
Remarketing adds a “moving ad” effect to a PPC campaign. No matter where a prospect goes online, your ads can follow. Be sure to create a cookie policy to stay GDPR compliant and respect your audience’s privacy.
If you’re going to scale your PPC campaigns, chances are that you plan to advertise several more products and services your business offers. The problem is that you can’t group all of these potential ads together.
This makes it very difficult to track results and measure your campaign’s ROI.
When scaling your PPC campaign, you’ll need to create distinct ad groups for different products and services.
For example, let’s say that you sell home security equipment. If you’re planning on advertising both home security cameras and alarm systems, then it’s best to place these products in different groups.
Why? Both of these products are very similar.
The reason is because when you separate different products and services into distinct ad groups, you make it easier to target hyper-specific keywords. This way, you can not only create keyword-rich ad copy, but you can develop ads that are just what your audience is looking for.
When designing a PPC campaign, it can be tempting to just target the low-hanging fruit. After all, there’s no harm in bidding for low-cost keywords that can net minimal traffic for your website or landing page.
The problem is that all traffic isn’t good traffic. Just because your ads are gaining impressions online doesn’t mean that they are successful. Even if you’re targeting keywords that total hundreds of thousands of traffic, your ads will never be completely efficient.
As a result, make sure that you analyze the demand of your targeted keywords before moving forward. This goes beyond determining how much traffic a standard keyword receives.
You can analyze the demand of a keyword by using external solutions, such as WordStream, SpyFu, SEMRush, and Ubersuggest.
Do you know how many keywords you’re targeting? Are they organized accordingly so you can monitor their performance? If not, then you better get busy in establishing a keyword list.
Google Ads already shows you a complete list of the keywords you’re bidding for. Though, if you plan to use any of the external keyword research tools mentioned before, you’ll need to explore these keywords into a list.
A major part of building a keyword list is deciding which keywords you don’t want to target. This may not seem important right now, but you could possibly be wasting money on irrelevant keywords that won’t net any bang for your buck.
If you’re attempting to scale your PPC campaign, the first step is analyzing areas where your ad budget is being wasted. Here are some effective ways to optimize your ad spend by creating a list of negative keywords:
If you’re going to be successful in scaling your PPC campaigns, then you’ll first have to spy on your fiercest competitors and understand how they’re structuring their campaigns.
In fact, this is one of the most important steps of building a PPC(Pay Per Click) campaign in the first place. Competitor analysis is the crux of both SEO and paid search. The good news is that there are several tools available to get a sneak peak into the campaigns of your competition.
Auction Insights via Google Ads, SpyFu, SEMRush, are all great tools to utilize in this regard.
Don’t fall into the trap of spamming keywords into your ad copy and headlines just to improve its quality score. While your ads will appear for relevant searches, it will fail to compel potential customers to click.
Remember, ad copy is for people, not Google or other. Make sure you are communicating clear and concise information to your target audience, such as your offer, contact information, and buzz words (such as buy now).
The important thing when writing ad copy is to always write for the end user.
Like the ad copy, the call-to-action (CTA) is also one of the most important structural components of any campaign. Therefore, pay close attention to the verbiage and contact information you use in your CTAs.
If you’re selling products, you should strive towards attracting your audience to “buy now”. On the other hand, if you’re selling services, it would be best to convince your audience to “learn more”.
These are clear differences, as most online products are geared toward consumers who have natural impulses to splurge in comparison to key decision makers who are interested in a service.
Since your CTAs will impact your entire campaign, place them in rigorous A/B tests to ensure they are effectively converting your target audience.
Scaling your PPC (Pay Per Click) campaign will ultimately require a great deal of experimentation, time, effort, and money.
When you choose to do all of the work yourself, you can run the risk of wasting your valuable investment and ruining your campaign.
In such cases, it’s time to fire your PPC agency.
Nonetheless, if you’re still interested in growing your Pay per click campaign, then you’ve come to the right place. Contact us today to receive a free proposal to begin scaling your campaign.
Most advertisers think all they need to boost their average click-through rate is to add some keywords, throw in some hard-hitting calls to action, and the sales and inquiries will start to flow in.
Well, it takes a little more effort than that. It can be quite an uphill battle when it comes down to increasing your conversion and click-through rates by scaling your pay per click marketing.
Google keeps updating its algorithms, and businesses keep increasing their marketing budget to see what sticks and what no longer works. But that’s not the right way either.
If you don’t manage or improve Google Ads click through rate for your account using the right techniques, your click-through rates, along with your conversion rates, are bound to take a hit. You will end up spending huge amounts of money on your digital marketing campaigns without the traffic or sales to justify them.
So, how do you improve your Google click-through rates when everyone is bidding for the same keywords and utilizing highly specialized digital marketing tools?
Let us look at some of the techniques digital marketers can use to ensure/improve Google ads CTR attract the most traffic and generate the most leads:
Google Ads uses Quality Score to score keywords from a range of 0 to 10. It denotes the relevancy of advertisements from their keywords, which is based on the probability that someone will click on these Google ads.
If you haven’t heard of Quality Score, it’s best to start from this metric. Ads with higher quality score get high rankings and accumulate fewer costs per click. They’re also more likely to have a high click-through rate.
Many factors impact Quality Score, right from your ad copy ad and URL to how relevant your PPC landing page and whether you positioned your keyword in the headline for your ad. The average click through rate CTR for Google is 3.17%, and boosting your quality score can inch you towards a higher percentage.
Google Ads has revamped its bidding game, incorporating smart bidding strategies and automation for its auctions.
Utilise smart bidding strategies: this allows Google to utilize automation for ad bidding, boosting your likelihood of getting ad clicks and your conversion rates. For this, Google relies on past data and boosts your bids for Google ads that are likely to do well with the audiences.
This automatically censors out the bids for Google ads that do not perform well and allows you to focus your energies on auctions with higher CTR (click-through rates).
With Google’s optimized bidding strategies, you can enhance your ad performance greatly. Since each auction is different, it isn’t feasible to analyze the performance of each auction manually.
Automation allows you to adjust your bids according to the performance of the keywords and saves you time from trawling through each keyword bid manually.
While this technique might not apply to all advertisements, it surely does work for e-commerce ads. Listing the price of your product in your ad copy can boost your click-through rates, particularly if your prices are lower than your competitors.
While some ad extensions do this for you automatically, highlighting pricing in your ad copy can distinguish you from your competitors’ ads when audiences see these ads side by side.
It is a useful technique to boost the average click-through rate because it gives your audiences additional information about your products or services and entices them into following through on your ad.
The more informative and descriptive you make your Google ads, the more they’re likely to consider clicking on them.
A compelling, well-written, and customized ad copy can help distinguish you from he tons of Google ads that cater to your niche and allow you to stand out from your competition. If you don’t differentiate your ad copy from your competitors, you will see a fall in your very High click-through rate (CTR) .
Make sure to emphasize your unique selling points, brand value, and why audiences should click on your ad instead of your competitors. Do you offer something that they don’t? Highlight these USPs and make sure they are reflected in your ad copy.
Including an enticing and powerful call to action in your ad copy can go a long way in boosting your click-through rate.
Many marketers focus on selecting the right keywords and writing an informative description but miss out on their CTA, which ends up leaving their piece sounding like an article rather than an ad copy.
Google analytics tend to review and rate strong calls to action quite positively, leading to improved click-through rates. Many copywriters tend to adopt the wrong approach when it comes to CTAs.
Simply announcing the roll-out of new products or making the languages too flowery and verbose can both impact the efficacy of the CTA. Make your CTAs blunt and concise to push the audience to act on the command.
Instead of relying on paid ads, try to make your ads enticing and attract organic traffic to your site. 94% of the clicks generated on online ads are through organic search engine result.
Study keywords and their search volume to know how many people are searching for those specific phrases. It might be tempting to go for keywords that have the highest rankings.
However, keywords with low-to-medium clicks can often have high conversions. This allows you to avoid competition while also guaranteeing high conversion rates from your visitors.
Conversely, high-ranking keywords with low CTR or conversions can end up costing you more without much business generated your way.
Also, avoid inserting too many keywords into your ad copy as it can impact your ad text and keywords. Too many keywords can affect your quality scores and, eventually, your Good CTR (click-through rates). The key is to use tightly themed keywords in your ad text and ad group them into smaller ad group.
The key to a high conversion rate is to make your ads more relevant to your target audience rather than projecting them to a huge audience. For this, you can use negative keywords to weed out the audience you know will not follow through on your ads.
Get the most of your budget by using SEO techniques and data to pinpoint the most relevant keywords and utilize them in your ad copies. By acquiring more SERP space, you’re bound to improve your click-through rate and conversion rate.
Your Average CTR is around 30% if you’re ranked number 1 on Google. With just third place, your average click through rate (CTR) drops to 10%. Therefore, your rankings can have a huge impact on your click-through rates.
One of the most effective techniques to increase click-through rate, which many marketers tend to overlook, is to analyze their competition sufficiently. This includes identifying competitors, analyzing their keywords, and understanding their ad copy.
You can use analytic tools to identify better what makes their ad click for audiences, especially the keywords they’re using and the language they incorporate in their ads.
Likely, they have already performed A/B testing on different variations of the same ad, and what you’re seeing is the best-performing variant.
Skip out on the testing process and take their best performing ad to understand why it performs the best. Try and incorporate similar techniques for your ad, but do not copy their ad word for word, and make sure to present your unique selling points.
When it comes to determining the relevancy of your ads, testing is the best option since it can be hard to tell what the audiences will respond best to. The key to this is to test multiple search ads for the same product or service and allow Google or search engines to decide which one performs the best.
Testing is a continuous process and even involves testing out different ad types on other locations online. Many times, it’s not what is in the ad copy but rather where your ad is placed. If your ad is placed where you aren’t likely to find customers, your click-through rates will be lower naturally.
It is crucial to test different ad types and keep the testing in-process continuously. For example, if you’re running tests on three variations of an ad copy, keep the two top-performing Google ads and remove the losing ad.
Meanwhile, create another ad variation and add it into the mix in place of the lowest-performing ad to keep the process ongoing.
The most popular testing technique is the A/B testing method, which includes two variants, and allows you to use one variant as the control.
The key is always to test out different ad types and keep things in flux since audience demands keep changing. Test numerous parameters, such as headers, CTAs, images, and graphics to determine what works best for your audiences.
Marketers can use remarketing campaigns to deliver re-customized ads to specific users and visitors. This involves targeting particular ads to visitors who have already viewed your content and making it clearer for them.
You can tweak your ads to cater to specific visitors, narrow down on particular products, or create new ads to upsell your existing customers. If they know you, then they are more likely to click on your ad. This means excluding users you know aren’t likely to be interested in your products.
Utilizing ad extensions can be an excellent way to improve your click-through rate. Location extensions can aid small business owners and help them to match with nearby customers. In addition, site links and callouts can enhance the relevancy of your ads, boosting your conversions and click-through rates.
There are many kinds of ad extensions, but not all of them apply to every advertisement campaign. If you aren’t utilizing the complete mix of ad extensions, then you’re missing out from reaching your full potential on Google.
You can make your ads appear more relevant to Google, increase their reach, and improve your click-through rate by utilizing the full range of extensions.
The tips detailed above are simple enough to implement easily in your current Google ads campaign. But make sure to test what you’ve done several times over to ensure that your intended audiences respond to your ads the way you want them to.
It is also vital to get qualified traffic that’s right for you. This means don’t just attempt to increase your visitors for the sake of it but aim for more conversions. Curious about pricing? Take a look at our guide to the cost of PPC management services. Contact us for more info!
Have you wanted to optimize your paid search campaigns?
The thing is, managing your paid search campaign is all about data, and data comes faster after you launch a new digital marketing campaign.
Before you optimize your campaign, you should be sure your top goal is from your paid search marketing campaign.
The last thing you want to do is attempt to optimize everything.
If you follow our strategies outlined below, you’ll be on the way to getting more for your digital marketing dollar.
When you advertise in several channels or campaigns in Google Ads, it’s vital to watch which channel produces the best residuals for your primary keyword performance indicator (KPI).
For instance, paid search has a higher conversion rate than YouTube, but that doesn’t mean the latter isn’t involved in the sale that paid search results gets credit for.
You should take time to grasp which search results campaigns and channels perform the best and then direct more of your budget that way.
Another vital factor in optimizing is the budget and search impression share. This is especially important when you are bidding on branded search terms in your niche.
Go over your impression share for locations where you defend the keywords for your brand, as well as any search terms that often convert to sales for you.
If you find yourself falling behind on share as you have a small budget, review how the funding is allocated.
If you don’t know what your competitors are doing in their PPC campaigns, you may flounder when forming your own. They will either dominate you when it comes to getting clicks or you’ll make errors they figured out long ago. You don’t want to be playing catch up with your competitors, right?
There are many ways to leverage what you know about your competitors as you form your paid search campaign strategy.
PPC tools help you to analyze the paid search marketing strategy for each of your competitors.
You can find tools that show the ad keywords for your competition, as well as their current paid search advertisements.
Some even allow you to review their advertisement history, which offers you insight into the google ads/ppc ads that do the best for them.
Outstanding performance in your PPC campaigns depends on a robust account structure.
You should ensure that ad groups clearly defined and that the keywords in each ad group are closely related to each other.
The more organization and relevancy in the account, the easier it is to focus on improving PPC ROI in different parts of your business.
Experts in the industry report that it’s ideal to have several ad campaign for each of your products and locations. Another way to organize your campaigns that work well is to base it on your site structure.
You can make bid adjustments at many levels. If you’re doing traditional, manual bid management, you do this at the keyword level.
But there are various aspects of your paid search campaign where you may consider applying additional bid adjustments.
For instance, you can adjust your bids by the day or hour of the day. Also, consider if you want to exclude certain times of the day or days during the week to ensure you get the best results.
Many recommend accessing Account Settings/Ad Schedule and putting in the dayparting schedule there.
Even if you run google ads 24/7, you have an appealing visual to review to check performance. Otherwise, you need to pull a new report every time.
After you do your competitive analysis, you should know how you can improve your online advertising copy to get more clicks.
Paid search ad copy is short – only 25 characters per headline and 70 characters for the ad – the text you write needs to get the person’s attention and get them to click.
If you see one of your competitors using a certain ad for weeks, there is a reason for it. The ad probably is getting clicks, so it’s a good template to use. Don’t copy what they’re doing, but look at the style and tone, as well as the keywords. After you look at some successful ads for your competitors, you probably can get an idea of what to do.
As well as getting some inspiration from your competitors, you should test your google ads to see which does the best. So, you should have two or more versions of the same ad so you can see the one that gets the most clicks.
Many marketers don’t realize how important performance by location is; some geographic areas perform differently from others. As you review and make adjustments to your top goal, you can increase the efficiency of your paid search campaigns.
If you are running your ad campaign nationwide, it’s also vital to keep track of how much budget the cities eat compared to how well they convert the prospect into a client.
You can look at the reports that reveal your location performance by accessing Campaign/Locations/User Location Report.
You can reduce your bids on locations that don’t perform as well or even think about excluding them.
If you review what users are searching for to get a match with your keywords, it informs about how paid search logic operates. But also helps you pinpoint the parts of queries that you don’t want to show up for.
This is where negative keywords can play a vital role and may help you avoid wasting money.
What the system counts as a conversion plays a vital role in determining the bidding mechanism performance.
Goggle allows you to monitor many user action types, but consider the difference between having the actions checked in conversion and bidding formulas vs. having it only for additional information.
Over months, older conversions may not matter as much. Or you could include a conversion type that was getting double counted because it was part of a current conversion type.
It’s wise to review these every quarter to ensure only counting the proper user actions for a conversion.
Keywords are the basis of paid search and organic paid search marketing, so doing a regular keyword review is a vital step in this process. The keywords you select in your campaign need to be focused on getting clicks from prospects. So, only keywords that have commercial intent can apply to your campaign.
So, you want searchers using those keywords to be as close to purchasing as possible. And remember: Don’t only select the most expensive keywords; there are niche keywords that can perform well that cost much less.
Adjusting bids by keyword is crucial because you need to review how they perform vs. the goal. You should ask yourself: Are there some keywords that don’t perform even though you check search queries, adjust bids, test landing pages, and testing various match types?
If that is the case, it may be time to remove these keywords from your campaign.
The landing page may be overlooked when measuring performance because they aren’t part of the ads account.
Nonetheless, the landing page is crucial to your ad account’s performance.
Why do people overlook landing pages?
First, landing pages are not as easy to adjust as other elements of a campaign.
Also, some brands may not want to spend money on landing pages. But landing pages often are the best way to convert prospects into clients.
Remember: Keywords and ads attract prospects to your website, and landing pages seal the deal.
It’s also important to review your campaign’s performance on various devices. Are your landing pages and pages easy to view on mobile devices?
How are your advertising campaigns doing on mobile vs. tablet vs. pc? And do you need to make adjustments to a particular device or exclude it from your ad campaign?
Don’t forget to check how each remarketing list is doing in a search and any necessary adjustments. If you’re using demographics for your inquiry, how is a particular age range doing vs. others?
Put in as many audiences as you wish at the Observation level, and see how they compare to baseline users.
Well, much depends on your goal.
Also, it depends on how your current campaigns are working.
For example, are your ad campaigns getting many clicks with a high click through rate (CTR) but only a handful of conversions?
Then it may be wise to review search queries to see how relevant they are.
Then, look at the landing pages to ensure they use best practices.
Also, review performance by device to note a big difference in different electronics your users are using.
The bottom line is there are many parts of paid search that you should review, analyze and optimize with regularity.
Let our paid search management services help you shine above your competition and maintain the ROAS you deserve.
Contact us today!
So, your company is paying big bucks for Google Ads, But Google ads not showing.
However, this isn’t always a problem.
But if you don’t see them with the Google Ad Preview tool, something’s wrong.
Fortunately, there is usually a good reason Google Ads don’t appear.
Below, we delve into why Google Ads not showing or don’t show up and what to do about it.
Some of the reasons they don’t show are technical or administrative issues, and others are performance-related issues.
Most Google Ad account holders pay for their ads with automatic credit card or debit payments. Google charges the account when you get to your payment limit or threshold. It also will charge your card at the end of the month’s billing period.
For your transactions to be processed, the payment details on your card need to be correct. When Google can’t charge the card, the ads won’t appear.
This is one of the most common reasons Google Ads not showing or don’t run. So make sure your payment information is accurate when setting up your account.
Many account holders also have their credit card expire and they forget to update the information.
If you see ‘Low search volume’ in your account, you probably target long-tail keyword’s that few searchers are looking for.
Long-tail keywords can potentially bring high traffic. But this won’t happen if they are stopping your Google ads from showing up. When Google sees that you are going after low-volume keywords, it will make the ad inactive in the account.
You can fix the problem by seeing if your keywords are in the low keyword search volume category. Go to the Keyword part of your Google Ads account and review ad Status. If you see ‘low search volume,’ you can see the problem.
If the keyword is rarely searched for because it’s extremely niche, use a broader term to cover more searches.
Google evaluates ads based on how relevant they are to what the person is searching for. But it also judges by how relevant your landing pages is to the ad and keyword. So the ad rank will drop if the landing pages isn’t optimized and meaningful to the user.
Solve the problem by examining the targeted keywords you target and thinking about what the searcher is looking for.
What are the questions the searcher has? What is causing their problem? What are they looking for to solve their issue?
The landing pages should answer these critical questions. The message must match the ad and the landing pages.
Some advertisers simply don’t put enough time, effort, and research into the quality of the landing pages. But this an essential part of successful campaigns.
The more effective you are at establishing relevance between the landing page and the ad, the more often your ads appear.
Using negative keywords in your ad campaigns ensures you don’t spend money on undesired search traffic. But be careful when you set up negative keywords with broad match modified.
Check the negative keyword list and ensure that you don’t have negative keywords that cancel out keywords in any ad groups.
A phrase match keyword that doesn’t perform well may be ineligible to show ads. This may happen if your active keywords are too broad, so use long-tail keywords are different match types.
Sometimes ads don’t appear because they have been paused. Or, the google ads campaign or ad groups level where the ads reside were paused. If that’s happened with your ads, you only need to enable ads again.
Also, Google ads may not show if they were taken out of your account. If that happens, you would need to recreate them.
You can check if you paused or removed the ads by going to Change History to see what has been changed.
If nothing in your account has been paused or removed and you still don’t see ads, Google may have disapproved them. An ad that Google didn’t approve, obviously, won’t show.
You may need to review Google’s ad policies.
If you focus on a geographic location outside your area, you won’t see your Google Ads. But, of course, that also is the case if you have a different language preference option.
Also, if the language selection in the search engine is different than what is in your campaigns, you won’t see your ads.
Sometimes Google will review ad accounts. This is for security, and the search engine will check that your billing information is accurate. But your ads will not appear during the review process.
Good news – the process only takes two or three days, then the ads will show again.
However, account reviews are part of Google’s business, so there isn’t anything you can do but wait.
If, for some reason, the account is reviewed for more than three days, you will need to contact them.
Depending on how you have planned your Google Ad budget, you could run through your ad budget too fast. For instance, some Google advertisers set up their ads to deliver quickly. This can make your campaign limited by budget.
If the ad campaign shows ‘limited by budget,’ it means the ad may not show because of your CPC compared to the allotted budget. Google Ads will try to spread the budget over the day for the best performance. So, your ads will not show each time a person looks for your keywords in Google.
Address this problem by lowering bids or boosting your daily budget.
Ad Schedule: Also, try setting up your ad schedule to certain hours of the day and focus on times when there is more user engagement.
As you see by this list, there are myriad reasons your Google Ads may not appear.
Unfortunately, many users have this problem, but the good news is that it’s not difficult to fix once you pinpoint the issue.
Did you know that Google handles about 5.6 billion search queries per day?
If you want your accounting company to get more exposure, it’s essential to get as many visitors to your site as possible.
It helps a lot to have a high Google page rank for major accounting firm and CPA terms, but a pay-per-click campaign for accountants could be just what you need to set your company apart.
PPC campaigns are helpful for the accounting Firms profession for many reasons:
With Pay per click (PPC) advertising, your company’s name will appear above most results on search engine. This helps more potential clients find your business.
If your company doesn’t rank for a critical accounting keyword, you can design an ad that appears when the user types that word. Your company name and site will always get prominence above your competition with PPC ads.
With A successful PPC campaign, you have a lot of control. It’s possible to make campaign changes immediately.
Just choose the keywords you want to focus on, set how much you are spending, and write the ad.
PPC allows you to track people that click your accounting Firms or CPA website. With that data, you know which Google ads work and which don’t. You also learn which pages get the most visitors and the most effective keywords.
All of this information lets you tweak your ads for the most effectiveness over the long term.
Before setting up a PPC campaign, please review these best practices to get the most bang for your buck.
Your Pay per click (PPC) campaign should be regularly updated to ensure they are focused on the right keywords and prospects. That means you or your PPC manager need to look for the latest keyword opportunities to put into the campaign.
You can rely on many ways to find the latest keywords. One simple way is to review Google search results in your niche and look for keywords that you didn’t include in your digital marketing campaign.
Another way is using the Keyword Planner that is included in your account. This is a free tool loaded with ways to find the best and most competitive keywords. You also can review what the average cost per click is for each word. Then you can forecast what you will probably spend and the marketing budget you need.
This is essential for your accounting PPC campaign. Conversion tracking lets you check how many visitors have come to your site from the campaign. This could be through a website form, chat, or phone call.
You also can use micro-conversion that lets you see smaller types of engagement, such as signing up for the e-newsletter or downloading a white paper.
When you set up conversion tracking, you can watch how many contacts or sales have come from a period of time compared to the costs. You also will know which keywords, ads, and landing pages are the best performers. This allows you to fine-tune your paid search campaigns for the most cost-effective results.
It’s easy to get bogged down in your own company and campaign, but don’t forget to check what your competitors are up to. There are reports and tools within Google Ads that help you keep up with competitors.
Some of these tools are free, but you also can pay third parties to analyze your competition. A popular paid tool is Spyfu which shows the keywords your competitors pay for. Another good one is SERanking. Both offer a good look at what other marketers are paying every month for your keywords.
For every accounting ad group, you have in Google Ads, it’s advised to have two or three advertisements so you can test various promotions and variations. Google/search engines have several ad types you can choose from.
Google defaults to showing the best-performing ads the most. So you should watch your ads and continue running tests. Any ad that isn’t performing well should be analyzed and improved for the best digital marketing spend.
It might seem too obvious, but it’s surprising how many accounting firm target areas that don’t matter to their business. After all, if your office is in Seattle, you may not get a lot of traction running ads in Miami. Sure, some clients can be remote, but many people don’t want to use an accountant that isn’t in their town.
You can easily set up location targeting in your Google Ad account by clicking Settings, Locations, and City/Region/Zip Code.
The recommendations page in your Google account offers many helpful opportunities to improve your campaign. Recommendations are created automatically by Google’s algorithm when it sees chances to make your campaign better.
There are lots of recommendations on this page that can help your accounting PPC campaign. Some include dynamic search as, targeting and keywords, responsive search ads, and more.
You also will notice an optimization score. This is Google’s estimate of how well your account is performing. Applying their recommendations helps the campaign improve.
The list of keywords for accountants is often shorter than for other PPC ads advertisers. This means there are fewer search variations even when your campaign targets several geographic locations.
That said, you still might dig up a few long tail keywords that work well for your accounting business.
It’s often worthwhile to use board match keyword versions of other keywords and match types. Experts say it’s ideal to begin with phrase and exact match keywords. Then, put in broad match after a few weeks or months when you want more clicks.
Don’t neglect negative keywords, either. For accountants, this can include keywords that are related to people searching for jobs, careers, resumes, etc.
PPC is one of the most powerful and cost-efficient ways for accountants to grow their brand and practice. Use these tips and your accounting firm will be well ahead of the competition.
If you manage a pay-per-click (PPC) account, you may always search for ‘the best way’ to increase ad performance.
Many different strategies work for various companies, but one surefire way to get better PPC performance is to bid on your branded keywords.
At first glance, this sounds like a waste.
Why should you run ads on branded keywords that already give you a high organic Google/search engines listing?
We’re glad you asked because the reasons we offer in this article should convince you that spending money on branded keywords offers excellent PPC ROI.
Want the best strategy to control the message of your own brand Or brand keywords? Bid on it! The landing page and advertising copy you want prospects to go to when they look for your brand name can be highly controlled with pay-per-click advertising.
If you don’t use branded clicks and the prospect puts your company name in search, they usually go to the home page/search engine results page. That’s fine but it probably isn’t the page that is most likely to make them take action.
If you can control the message the prospect sees – such as highlighting your most popular product – it’s more likely they will take the action you want.
Say your company sells regulatory webinars and it’s currently offering a discount on an annual pass. When a prospect looks for your company name, you need to be sure they are aware of the discount in the advertisement copy.
When they click the ad, they will be sent to the landing page to learn everything about the yearly discount, which will include a call to action to get them to purchase.
Let’s say you decide to use a branded keyword campaign and it’s doing very well. That’s awesome and it comes with another benefit: It enhances your account’s/social media accounts Quality score.
Having a branded keyword part of your PPC campaigns means the account gets a better Quality Score, and having a higher grade is very important for search placement.
If you own a home or investment properties, you know their location is often more important than anything. Even if the home is really attractive, you could have problems if the neighborhood is so-so.
In a similar vein, using track-branded keywords helps you to own as many of the SERPs as possible. You want to do so with your regular Branded keywords ads, but it’s very difficult to show up in paid search ads and high organically for every Branded keyword.
Spending on branded keywords gives you a bigger boost. Your site will be high in the rankings organically. And, the branded ad also will appear.
A visitor may click either one, but it always helps to occupy more SERP real estate. The more of that space you occupy, the more likely the customer will wind up on your site.
Does it seem like your partners and affiliates present your brand and products well? Great! But don’t take that to mean you should never bid on your brand. The opposite is true, actually.
Working with partners and affiliates is worthwhile; it increases your market reach and potential revenues. But it’s understandable that you probably prefer to sell to your prospects directly.
When you bid on branded keywords, this makes sure the ad shows alongside ads that your partners and affiliates placed.
If you see bidding on your company brand by competitors, then you really need to start doing it.
Using branded keywords means raising your CTR and Quality Score. After all, branded keywords are highly relevant to your landing pages and ads.
Once you lock in that higher Quality Score, you get a lower CPC, too! Branded searches will automatically put branded ads at the top of search results.
No one can guarantee that getting branded clicks to your site is cheaper than others. But many in the industry say this is often true.
Also, the price for non-branded Keyword and branded keywords can be really different. There are some companies that pay up to $20 per click for non-branded keyword but only $2 for branded keywords!
You can track organic searches with a search console, but the functionality is limited. With a paid search/digital marketing campaign and branded keywords, you will gain valuable information about your customers.
You’ll collect branded keyword data from ad licks but you can take advantage of ad extensions to get even more insights and data.
Conversion tracking with a PPC ads campaign also lets you collect information on demographics, and you can find out the days and times you get the most site Organic traffic. With this critical data, you will be able to make improved decisions about your ads and SEO or search engine optimization strategy.
If you try various versions of branded keywords Or Find branded keywords, you could discover search results that give you more insight into your customers.
Some companies say they found new target markets they can target with unique landing pages. And it all comes from just using branded keywords as part of your Digital marketing efforts.
If you aren’t convinced to bid on your branded keywords after reviewing our list, your reluctance is understandable; who wants to spend unnecessary money on ads? However, experience shows that bidding on branded keywords could give you some of the best ROI in your Digital marketing spend.
If your company is operating a pay-per-click or PPC campaigns, you should spend some of your ad budgets on branded keywords. Some experts say you should dedicate about 15% of your ad budget to branded keywords.
This is an effective strategy because it’s some of the least expensive web traffic you can get. Also, by targeting branded search terms:
Running online ads is about getting the most bang for your buck. If you aren’t getting a return on your ad campaign, it’s a waste.
Obviously, more sales will help increase your return. But lowering the cost of running an ad campaign/PPC Campaign will increase your return as well.
That’s where PPC (pay-per-click) automation comes in. It helps you save time and money by streamlining manual processes on the backend.
PPC automation refers to managing and optimizing your multiple PPC campaigns through technology like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).
The more PPC campaigns you have and the bigger they are, the more important/Best PPC automation becomes.
There are two types of PPC automation software:
Both types of PPC automation software help you scale your Google ads campaigns.
But where do you start?
Well, here are 12 PPC automation tools you can try today:
Custom builds are rule-driven automations that allow you to customize just about anything on an ad. It’s also the most complicated form of automation and will take an experienced coder to build.
Artificial intelligence for PPC can play a significant role in custom builds.
Scripts are data-driven automations that use javascript code. They tell ads to follow certain functions based on how they perform. For example, you can have scripts for ad schedules that determine when it’s best to run a particular ad.
Though you can custom program ad scripts, you can also choose scripts from Google’s library of code scripts for free. No coding required.
Google Ads Editor is a free downloadable program that helps you create, track, and edit Google Ads. It also lets you make bulk changes across multiple accounts at the same time. For a free program, it’s hard to beat.
Semrush’s PPC Ads Toolkit helps you track and assess google ads across search engines and social media platforms. With it, you can perform keyword research and see how your google ads perform against your competitors. Subscriptions start at $119.95/month.
Swydo provides automated ad reporting and monitoring. It integrates data sets from different ad platforms like Facebook Insights and Google Ads so you can have it all in one place. You can try Swydo for free, after which the pricing starts at $39/month.
Optmyzr is a PPC automation tool you can use with Bing ads and Adwords. It uses AI to help you add and remove keywords, change placements on display networks, change bids, and more. They offer a free trial, after which subscriptions start at $208/month.
Spyfu is a competitor keyword research tool that gives you keyword ideas. But it also helps you do backlink outreach, run custom reports, and more. As of this writing, they have a limited-time $9/month offer. But their regular basic plan starts at $33/month.
AdEspresso is a one-stop solution for managing and optimizing your ads on Facebook, Instagram, and Google. It helps you save time from switching between different platforms and channels.
Plus, AdEspresso lets you collaborate with client accounts if you run Google ads for others. You can test it with a free 14-day trial, after which pricing starts at $49/month.
Google Data Studio isn’t strictly a PPC automation tool. But it helps you visualize data with custom reports. This is nice for importing ad campaign/PPC Campaign data and sharing it with others in meetings. Importing Google ad data is especially easy. And best of all, it’s free.
Zapier isn’t just a PPC automation tool either. But it can save you time on your PPC ads campaign by automating workflows. Any manual tasks that you find yourself doing repeatedly, you can automate through a “zap.” Try it out for yourself with a free trial and then pay as little as 19.99/month.
Adzooma helps you manage your ad campaign across Google, Microsoft, and Facebook. What’s unique about this tool is its ability to check accounts every 30 minutes to automatically adjust ad budgets and improve performance.
You can also set up custom alerts to react to changes immediately. Try it for free for limited features and then upgrade to a paid plan later.
Smec is geared toward ecommerce ad campaign. It helps you manage and automate ad campaign across multiple platforms and provides retail insights about shopping behavior so you can identify opportunities to grow your business. If you’re in the retail space, Smec is a must.
Whatever PPC automation tools you choose, be prepared to invest some time into learning how to use it.
You may not see results immediately, but eventually, your ad campaign will perform better, and you’ll need to ad spend less time on them.
If you’d rather not bother with tools at all, consider partnering with PPC.co. We provide comprehensive PPC Campaign management services /PPC Managers with proven results.
Our expert team can optimize your google ad campaigns across Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and more. Whether you’re struggling with display ads or Google Ads retargeting, we can help.
We can also help you combine your SEO and PPC strategies so they effectively match!
Contact us today to get a free proposal!
Search dominates the modern zeitgeist.
If you want to look up information on a topic, you search for it.
If you want to buy a specific product, you search for it.
If you’re facing a tough problem and you don’t know where to start, you search for it.
So it’s no wonder why search marketing and advertising have come to be the dominant strategies utilized by businesses to improve visibility, authority, traffic, and conversions.
Now, depending on who you ask, you might get one of two different answers for the best way to approach search marketing.
Some will insist that search engine optimization (SEO) is the best strategy.
Others will say it’s pay per click (PPC) advertising.
But the truth is, both of these strategies have incredible potential. And if you use them together in the right ways, you can see even better organic search results.
What exactly are the differences between these two strategies? How can you optimize your approach to each? And how can you use them together to even greater effect?
Before we delve into specific strategies and tactics you can use to harness the full potential of both search engine optimization (SEO) and PPC ad’s, let’s talk about the basics of these Digital marketing and advertising campaigns or PPC Campaign.
SEO Is all about increasing your organic rankings in search engines results pages (SERPs). Google and other search engines use a variety of ranking factors to determine which web pages to rank for a certain query and how to order them. If you can learn how to manipulate these ranking factors, you can increase your rankings, thereby making your webpages more visible in organic searches and attracting more traffic in the process.
Some of the most common tactics for this include developing robust onsite content, improving technical factors like loading time and site security, and building offsite links. It’s a long-term strategy that takes many months, and sometimes years to fully develop.
With PPC, you’ll use Google Ads and similar platforms to bid on and ultimately place advertisements above the fold in SERPs. There are also PPC ads on other platforms, like social media sites, but for now, we’re going to focus exclusively on search engines PPC ad’s.
You can control almost every variable in this process, choosing which keywords you want to display for, the audiences you want to target, and how much you’re willing to spend on this PPC campaign. However, the cost of this strategy goes up based on competition, so if you’re competing with many big businesses, this can get expensive fast.
That said, PPC advertising management is one of the most reliable ways to generate traffic, since you’re only paying for the people who actually click on your ad.
So how can SEO and PPC work together?
There are a few different ways to look at this.
For starters, we should understand that both SEO and PPC have strengths and weaknesses. Many of these strengths and weaknesses are complementary, meaning that if we use these strategies together closely enough, they can cancel out each other’s weaknesses and play to each other’s strengths.
We can also see these strategies as individually optimized for different types of SERP coverage. Only by utilizing both will you be able to maximize your visibility in search engines results.
However, we should also address a common misconception here: SEO and PPC don’t work directly together by feeding off each other. It’s tempting to think that paying for Google ads for a specific keyword could increase your likelihood of ranking for that organic keyword, but this is not the case. Paid search ads don’t have any effect on your domain authority or your ranking potential, and ranking highly in search engines organically isn’t going to benefit your PPC campaign directly.
Now let’s take a look at the specific ways you can use organic search ranking and paid search ads together.
Always start by keeping a consistent brand voice. If you don’t have a voice already created for your brand, now is the time to create one. Too often, companies sharply segment their search engine optimization (SEO) and PPC teams, resulting in a fractured voice that users find confusing and disorienting. But you have to remember, your prospects and customers are going to be encountering your brand in multiple different contexts. If you want to build their familiarity and trust, all your Google ads and search rankings need to embody the same values and personality.
Don’t allow your Digital marketing teams to become siloed. Instead, share information across departmental barriers. Both your SEO and PPC teams will be collecting valuable information, such as traffic rates, behavioral patterns, demographic interests, and engagement rates. For example, you may learn that one specific keyword fetches a much higher conversion rate than another; you can then incorporate this keyword into organic content for your SEO campaign. But this type of maneuver is only possible if all your departments and all your team members are openly sharing information with each other.
Instead of thinking about your SEO and PPC goals as separate, start thinking about them as two branched paths toward the same end destination: SERP domination. Advertisements give you the opportunity to achieve more visibility than organic rankings In some contexts, but you’ll also have organic ranking opportunities where keywords are too expensive to justify a bid. If you harness the full potential of both, you can get more SERP coverage and make your brand visible to even more people.
Remember that there is no such thing as a perfect digital marketing strategy. SEO is extremely cost effective, but it’s also sluggish and time intensive. PPC, by contrast, is fast and reliable, but it’s also more expensive. To get the most value out of both strategies, you’ll need to play to their individual strengths, while minimizing weaknesses. One common manifestation of this is focusing on PPC ads while developing authority for specific organic keywords; you can start taking advantage of traffic streams immediately, while slowly building up your onsite optimization.
Search related strategies only work if you truly understand your audience. You need to understand who you’re targeting, what their values are, what their goals are, and even how they think, at least to an extent. If you blindly optimize or bid for keywords based on your own intuitions, you’re going to fail. You’re also going to fail if you attempt to cater to a generic, universal audience. More on that in our next point.
At least in the beginning, focus on targeting niche audiences, rather than general audiences. Optimizing content and advertisements for young men in college is far superior to optimizing content and advertisements for everyone in the country. There are several reasons for this. First, you’ll face less competition, which is advantageous in SEO and PPC; you’ll pay less money for ads and you’ll be able to climb rankings faster. Second, you’ll achieve more relevance, meaning you’ll be more successful attracting people to your website and converting them.
What level of awareness is exhibited by your target audience?
How does that level of awareness change throughout the buyer journey?
For example, your customer may start out not even having awareness that they have a problem. At some point, they’ll be aware that a problem exists, but they won’t have awareness of the solutions available for it.
Gradually, they’ll work through the later stages, eventually becoming aware of products like yours, then your specific product, then your brand.
Throughout this by your journey, you’ll find “hidden” keywords and phrases that reveal the searcher’s intent, like “slow air leak” or “why nobody is applying for a job.” Capitalize on these to improve your relevance and avoid the competition.
Local optimization is ideal for reducing competition and appealing to specific audiences. Even if your company operates on a national level, it can be helpful to target some local terms. This is true for both SEO and PPC; local ads are cheaper than national ads, and you can optimize your website faster for local terms than national ones. Use localized landing pages and other localized content to fully capture the local audiences you target.
Keep your finger on the pulse. Don’t assume that your target audience is going to continue following the same trends and exhibiting the same behavioral patterns indefinitely. One of the best ways to do this, in addition to measuring and analyzing traffic on your site, is to analyze search trends. Which terms are rising in popularity? Which ones are falling? How is user intent evolving?
When targeting specific keywords for SEO or PPC, most marketers rightfully target words that are high in volume and low in competition, maximizing the number of people who will see the advertisement or onsite content piece while minimizing the number of competitors aggressively appealing to it. This is usually a good strategy, allowing you to improve cost effectiveness and avoid wasting time period however, you should avoid “keyword traps” that looked good on paper, but won’t lend much value to your business. These keywords may be high in volume and low in competition, but they aren’t relevant to your central business or your target demographics.
One of the shortfalls of SEO it’s the amount of time it takes to generate momentum for a website. Even if you invest heavily, writing tons of valuable content and building new links every week, you may not see initial ranking progress for several weeks or months. It’s going to take even longer to achieve a steady stream of heavy traffic. One of the best ways to close the gap here is to invest in PPC ads as a shortcut for immediate visibility; as long as you’re willing to pay for them, you can start generating traffic right now.
The flip side of this is that PPC ads are ephemeral; as soon as you stop paying for them, they disappear. If you want to have a more lasting impact, you need to establish pages of your website as intrenched, powerful content centerpieces. SEO is far better for this purpose. Use SEO to optimize pages of your website for evergreen keywords you expect to be relevant and valuable for the foreseeable future.
Competitors can be brutal, paying to rank for your branded keywords or completely taking over a niche you thought was exclusively yours. These aggressive maneuvers are easy to spot, but only if you’re paying attention to recent changes in relevant SERPs. Accordingly, you should employ ongoing competitor monitoring, taking notice of any major activity and responding accordingly.
Oftentimes, marketers and advertisers get lost in the idea of improving brand visibility and generating more traffic. But what do you do with that traffic once it hits your website? You’ll need to provide a powerful first impression and maximize user attention and interest to get more value out of each of these strategies. Fortunately, you can double dip with some of your assets, using them for both your SEO and PPC campaigns. One of the best examples of this is unique landing pages, which you can create for specific types of visitors and audience segments. Funnel all relevant traffic from organic searches and paid ads to landing pages that are relevant for the searcher.
Google is the first name that comes to mind when most people think about SEO or PPC. But Google isn’t the only option for paid advertisements, nor is it the only search engines people use regularly. Bing, DuckDuckGo, Facebook, and YouTube are other search engines, platforms, and media outlets worth considering as part of your strategy. Google gets all the attention because it’s by far the most popular search engines, but that also means it attracts the most competitors. Don’t be afraid to branch out.
People generally respond much better to visual content than written content, so include visuals whenever you can. This is one area where PPC ads are favorable; you can add images to an ad to make it pop. It’s also possible to optimize pages of your website with images and videos, but it can be tricky to make sure they become visible in SERPs.
You may be interested in SEO to improve the visibility of your brand and boost consumer awareness. There’s nothing wrong with this, but if you want to milk as much value out of the strategy as possible, you should optimize SEO for clickthrough rates. In other words, you should see your SEO strategy as only being truly valuable if people are clicking on your webpage and visiting it. Optimize for keywords that align with user search intent and improve your titles and descriptions to attract more traffic. This isn’t usually a problem with PPC ads, since you won’t be paying for people who don’t click your links.
There’s significant room for experimentation in optimizing paid search. You have control over all the variables, you can conduct AB tests quite easily, and you can delve into reporting and analytics to figure out exactly how your ads performed. This makes the PPC ad world a perfect testing ground for headlines, keyword selection, descriptions, and audience positioning. Take full advantage of this and learn lessons about your competitive environment if you want to make the most of both PPC and SEO.
SEO success is highly dependent on your ability to create excellent content and get people to pay attention to that content. But even if you’re an excellent writer, it can be hard to get your work noticed. PPC ads could be the perfect jump start, giving you a guaranteed stream of traffic and introducing hundreds, or even thousands of people to your latest work. From there, you’ll likely find it easier to attract links and inspire more user engagement.
PPC ad extensions are useful, additional pieces of information associated with the ads you place. They could serve to educate, direct, or inspire your target audience, providing details like the location of your business, opportunities to place a call directly, and more. Take full advantage of these; it’s a prime opportunity to immediately engage with prospective customers, rather than merely sending them to your website.
Automate whatever you can. Both SEO and PPC ads require at least some manual effort and human attention, but there’s much you can systematically implement to run in the background. These are both demanding strategies that could potentially monopolize your time, so employ shortcuts and time savers like automation whenever you can.
Are you working with limited experience or a limited team?
Don’t worry. We’re here to help.
We have the team members, resources, knowledge, and expertise to take your PPC campaigns to the next level. Contact PPC.co for a free proposal today!
Developing an effective bid strategy is one essential aspect of your Pay Per Click (PPC) ad campaign.
Google offers ‘smart campaigns’ but devising a click-and-go advertising or PPC campaigns that actually works is still a fantasy.
So, having success with your manual bidding or automated bidding largely comes down to your strategy.
Of course, bid strategies are more complex than years ago and there are more features to consider.
As much as Google tries to make our lives simpler with automated bidding, you will still need to do your research.
Below is more information about bid strategy and when to increase your PPC bid.
The perfect way to begin your Google Ad bidding journey is to use everything Google puts at your fingertips.
And that starts with the Keyword Planner.
This wonderful free tool will help you find new long tail keywords you didn’t consider – and it gives you a suggested bid based on how you set your advertising account.
Many experts recommend beginning viewing by looking at every keyword’s page 1 bid. Then maybe increase it by 25% to get to the middle of the page/landing page.
This will ensure your PPC ads are more visible but aren’t at the top of the heap (which will greatly increase your ad appears expenditures).
Let’s take a close look at several of the most popular automated or manual bidding strategies:
This is a popular Google Ad Manual or automated bidding strategy that can boost your conversions while focusing on a specific desired result on the home page. If your goal is to reduce costs to generate more sales, Target CPA is a worthwhile choice.
That keyword that costs less per click doesn’t always mean it’s superior to one with a higher manual CPC bidding.
Additional site traffic at a lower CPC will not necessarily net your firm more money.
Return on Ad Spend is also a great automatic bidding strategy that will help you reach the desired ROI.
With ROAS, you set your eyes on a certain dollar amount from total sales and not how many items your customers purchase. This is a useful method for products that cost more.
ROAS will adjust your strategy automatically and is based on your desired outcome or goal. Google will utilize conversion data from old PPC campaign to estimate possible conversion chances in the future.
This is an automated Google Ad strategy. It means the site uses AI to increase conversions and their values in your digital marketing campaign. Google looks at signals during the auction, including OS, device location, time of day, and more to boost your conversions.
Many marketers say Maximize Conversion’s can be best if you already have some conversion history in the books. But it’s not essential. Note, however, that this method could increase your costs a lot if the average spend is below the average daily budget.
This is like maximizing conversion’s is similar to Maximize Conversions. But the focus is on clicks, obviously. This can be what you want to drive prospects to your new website, so it works well for building audience and brand awareness. If your site doesn’t have conversion tracking set up, this strategy will set ad bids/adjust bids/manage bids to get as many clicks as possible.
It’s generally considered prudent to raise your bids when you can net the most profitable traffic from the keyword. And you should probably lower your PPC bid when you can get traffic that converts but it’s too expensive.
Some additional factors regarding when to raise and lower bids:
Further, if your company goal is to reduce your cost per action or CPA, you should allow the keyword-level CPAs to tell you when to raise or lower your bids. Naturally, what you do will be different based on the keyword, but here are some guidelines:
If the CPA for a keyword is below your goal and is showing a lower ad position, many say to increase the bid. This boosts your ad higher on the page. Then, you have better advertisement visibility and additional clicks and conversions.
However, if the keyword has a higher CPA and is still in a top position, think about lowering the bid. Fewer conversions will be the result but it will reduce your CPAs.
Now that you know when it makes sense to raise your ad bid, let’s review how you figure out which bid strategy is best:
Establishing a Google Ad bidding strategy and knowing when to increase or decrease bids is complex.
That’s why many growing companies turn their PPC advertising strategy and campaign to a skilled and experienced contractor.
Need help with Google Ads management? Contact us, we can help!
Your brand is your company’s identity.
It’s a keystone for most of your marketing and advertising strategies.
At the center of every message you send, every advertisement you display, and every new marketing tactic you try is going to be your brand name, big and prominent.
Despite this, people commonly neglect branded terms when practicing search engines optimization (SEO). Traditionally, SEO strategies focus on commonly searched keywords and phrases, as well as phrases that cleanly reveal user search intent.
For example, you might optimize for phrases like “good pancakes near me” or “auto repair shop Austin.” No branded keywords are necessary here, because you’re intentionally generating a list of brands to consider in your forthcoming purchase.
But if you want to get more value out of your SEO strategies, and earn even more valuable conversions, you need to start optimizing for branded search.
What exactly does this mean? And how can you do it?
First, what makes a conversion valuable?
On some level, all conversions are valuable.
In case you’re not familiar with the term, a conversion is just a meaningful action taken by one of your users. Depending on your organization and your strategy, a conversion could be a product purchase, a newsletter signup, or an interaction with a meaningful piece of optimize existing content on your own website.
Conversions will either give you revenue immediately or represent one step on the journey to getting revenue.
Our claim is that branded keyword and branded searches give better conversions, so what do better conversions look like?
Ultimately, branded searches are good for your conversion strategy for a few different reasons:
Branded search optimization, the practice of optimizing your website specifically for branded keywords, offers some other benefits as well:
Are there any weaknesses associated with branded search optimization?
The short answer is yes, but most of them present opportunities for compensation.
Now to the heart of the matter.
How do you optimize for branded search?
How can you make sure you remain competitively dominant in the landscape of branded search terms relevant to your brand name?
Is your brand in need of further online marketing support? Is there a missing ingredient in your existing branded search engines optimization (SEO) strategy? You’re in the right place: SEO.co is here to help. Contact us for a free consultation today!
No matter how much experience you have running pay-per-click (PPC) ads, a checklist will help you manage your time.
Trying to manage your responsibilities without a checklist can make you skip important tasks even when you’ve performed them routinely for years.
There’s a reason professionals in various industries use checklists – they work. Although the consequences for mistakes are more serious in other industries, checklists are the perfect companion for digital marketers.
Technically, you can’t manage time because it will go on whether you like it or not. We all have the same 24 hours in the day and that won’t change. However, you can manage your tasks within time and that’s what time management is really all about. In other words, it’s about managing your tasks within the boundaries of time.
Time management strategies vary, but they all fall back on the reliability of lists and written tasks. When you’re managing a PPC ad campaigns, time management matters. There are so many different components to set up, manage, and optimize, that if you don’t strictly manage your time and tasks, your campaigns will suffer.
The main purpose of a PPC audit checklist is to help you track recurring tasks within your PPC ad campaigns. Most of the time, you’ll have weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, and bi-monthly tasks. If you haven’t already organized your tasks into a schedule, this article will provide you with an outline to get you started.
Here are some common weekly PPC tasks to add to your PPC audit checklist:
If your projections indicate that you’re going to overspend, decrease your keyword bids and/or budgets. If your conversions are lacking, adjust your keyword bids or put all of your PPC budget into your highest performing campaigns.
Also, check to see if your campaigns exclude site categories where you don’t want your Google ads to run. For example, you may not want your Google ads to run on sites with content related to sexually suggestive content, sensitive social issues, or in-game placements on mobile apps. Many advertisers exclude mobile apps completely because they tend to eat ad budgets due to lower click and conversion rates.
Here are some common bi-weekly PPC tasks to add to your checklist:
This data will help you stop running google ads that don’t perform well and add new ad variations to see if you can beat your control for your highest-performing Google ads.
Don’t forget to check in on your retargeting/remarketing ads. And if you haven’t started running these better-performing ads yet, it’s something to seriously consider.
Studies have shown that using remarketing ads generate a higher ROI because they bring back potential customers that didn’t convert the first time. Many people who come back to a brand through remarketing end up converting.
Here are some common monthly PPC tasks to add to your checklist:
Check your account to ensure you’re targeting the right google search network, devices, languages, locations, and any other specific demographics you have set.
Hopefully, you’ve been testing different landing pages with your ads. If so, run a Final URL report to identify underperforming landing pages and send your traffic to the pages that are converting better. Then, look at your landing pages to see if you can identify why they’re not performing as well. Continue your split testing by creating more landing pages based on the ones that perform the best and keep testing your page elements.
Here are some common bi-monthly PPC tasks to add to your checklist:
When you identify locations that aren’t performing well, add negative keyword modifiers to eliminate untargeted or ineligible clicks. Then, add positive bid modifiers on your locations that are performing well.
As you can see, there are plenty of tasks to perform on regular schedules in order to keep your PPC ad campaigns running optimally. By creating your PPC setup checklist, you’ll be giving yourself a valuable tool that will keep track of your tasks better than your memory.
Countless studies have proven that human memory is unreliable, especially when it comes to details. This is seen most clearly in experiments designed to determine eyewitness reliability. In these experiments, witnesses struggle to remember basic things like the color of a suspect’s clothing, their height, and even their physical features.
Don’t rely on your memory to manage your PPC ad campaigns. While you might be able to remember some things, you’ll never remember everything. Additionally, having a checklist makes your job easier because you can simply go down the list and check things off as you complete each task.
Having a list also makes it easier for you to ad scheduling your tasks in your calendar and set those tasks as recurring items. Having a to-do list is great, but if you don’t also schedule your tasks you’re likely to skip important things.
Running a PPC campaign takes a lot of work and isn’t really suited as a one-person job. If you want big results from your PPC ads, you need a team to manage your PPC campaign.
Less than 25% of PPC search ads produce conversions, but that’s because most campaigns aren’t properly set up or optimized. When you work with us, we’ll get you the results you want.
We work with businesses in a variety of industries to create effective PPC campaigns that drive leads and sales. We’ll not only create effective ad copy, but we’ll also optimize your landing pages with effective ad copy. This is where most people get PPC ads wrong. A high click-through rate is only worthwhile when your landing pages convert. We’ll make sure your CTR improves along with your landing page conversions.
If you’re ready to take your PPC campaigns to the next level, get in touch with us and tell us about your goals. We’d love to help you generate the impressive results you’re after.
You’ve probably visited a website that accurately displayed the time and date of your visit. This web feature has been around for a while and is fairly common, especially on sales pages. However, dynamic content isn’t limited to times and dates – you can use this amazing feature for dynamic keyword insertion (DKI) into your Google ads.
Dynamic keyword insertion (DKI) ads is an advanced Google AdWords feature that inserts part of a user searches query into your PPC ads/only ads. It’s quite effective at getting more clicks. Imagine being a user searching for something specific and seeing the same ad group/ad groups that reflects the specifics of your search. You’ll be more likely to click on that ad, right?
If you haven’t used this feature, you’re missing out on clicks and revenue. Here are 5 reasons to start using dynamic keyword insertion work with your Google ads.
In your digital marketing campaigns, you want your prospects to think, “this product or service is for me.” When prospects feel like a product, service, or web content is meant for them, they’re more likely to convert.
You can get people to recognize that something is meant for them with professionally written sales ad copy that speaks directly to their needs, desires, keyword insertion and pain points. However, you can also achieve this through what’s commonly referred to as “keyword backtracking” in neurolinguistics programming (NLP) terms. Use Dynamic keyword insertion is essentially automated keyword list backtracking for paid ads.
Keyword backtracking is a form of active listening, and it’s when you repeat someone’s words back to them in order to make them feel heard. In a live conversation, keyword insertion this makes a prospect trust you more. When used in Google ads, it has the same general effect, but since there’s no live conversation it tells prospects your one ad is exactly what they’re looking for.
There are two reasons dynamic keyword insertion increases CTR. The first reason is that Google automatically bolds dynamic keyword insertion in ads that match the user search. When you use dynamic keyword, your ads will show up with bolded keywords more often, which means more click’s.
The second reason DKI increases your click through rate is because it increases the relevancy of your ad, which brings up the next point.
Ads with high relevancy get more clicks, period. When you publish standard ads, it’s possible to make them relevant ad/hyper relevant ads to your audience, but nothing makes an ad more relevant than automatically inserting part of the user’s search team into the ad.
Here’s an example of how this works. Say you’re running a pre-owned car dealership and you specialize in selling Jeeps. You can program your ad headline to insert the words “Jeep, Cherokee, Wrangler, Gladiator, Rubicon, SUV,” etc. when a user includes them in their search. This way, your ad headline will customize itself to always reflect the user’s specific search. It would look like this:
Your headline template: “Buy Used {keyword: Jeep}
Search phrase: “Used Jeep Cherokee for sale near me”
Your displayed headline: “Buy Used Jeep Cherokee”
Search phrase: “Used Jeep Wrangler for sale near me”
Your displayed headline: “Buy Used Jeep Wrangler”
If no keyword can be inserted dynamically, your ad will default to your specified target keywords or competitor keywords, in this case it would be ‘Jeep.” The ad will still be relevant, just not highly specific.
Google is always focused on quality, and PPC ads are no exception. Google assigns a Quality Score to all PPC advertisers based on the quality and ad relevance and quality of their dynamic keyword insertion, ad text, default keyword insertion text or ad text and landing pages/landing page url. You might be familiar with this already, but if not, it’s important to understand how Google’s Quality Scores works.
Your Quality Scores is more important than you may realize because it’s used to calculate your cost per click (CPC) and multiplied by your max bid to set your ad rank during the ad auction process.
Getting a higher Quality Scores will reduce your CPC and help you reach more people with your ads by giving you a higher ad position. This is what makes use dynamic keyword insertion so valuable – it’s an excellent way to increase the relevance of your ads in order to help you earn a higher Quality Score.
It’s easy to spend hours on end creating ad variations, but that’s not necessary when you use DKI. DKI makes it easy to create ads that target a large number of multiple keywords. It’s essentially automation for ad variations.
Since time is money, it makes sense to use dynamic keywords insertion DKI whenever possible. Think of all the time you’ll save that you can use to work on other, more exciting aspects of your business.
Although dynamic keyword insertion is an excellent strategy, DKI isn’t a substitute for targeting relevant demographics, having relevant content, and creating a persuasive ad copy. It’s simply a tool to capture more attention from your target market. If your ads use broad match keywords in a misleading way, DKI will get you clicks, but not conversions.
Be digital marketing cautious about accidentally creating clickbait with your PPC ads. Not only will this kill your Quality Score by reducing the relevance of your ads, but it will make people stop trusting your brand.
Sometimes clickbait is unintentional, and that’s why it’s important to review your ads to make sure they’re accurately representing whatever content you’re sending your visitors to on the other side. There’s nothing wrong with being clever, but don’t be so clever that your visitors get a good chuckle out of your ad group/tightly themed ad groups and then bounce.
Running a PPC ad campaigns on any platform can be daunting when you’re trying to learn everything on your own. No matter how many tutorial videos you watch, the learning curve is steep and mistakes are plenty. Normally, mistakes are just opportunities to learn. However, paid ads cost money, and mistakes are expensive.
There’s a reason less than 25% of PPC single word keywords/same keyword ad groups convert; paid advertising is a skilled profession that requires expertise to get results. If you’re not getting results, dynamic search ads or if you haven’t launched a PPC ad campaign yet, it’s time to get started.
At PPC.co ad description, we can help you get the conversions you deserve using established best practices and advanced techniques that get results. Contact us today to learn more about our services and receive a free proposal from our PPC team.
Pop-ups have a reputation for being annoying, but that’s not the whole story. Not all pop-ups ads are considered annoying. In fact, pop-ups advertising is highly effective when done correctly – emphasis on correctly.
It’s entirely possible to create pop-ups ads that appeal to your website visitors and add to their experience.
In this article, you’ll learn about 11 effective ways to use pop-ups to get results, but first, let’s explore the science behind why this form of advertising is so effective.
Pop-ups ads work and there’s plenty of proof, including this study performed by Sumo that looked at 1,754,957,675 pop-ups. Based on the results, at 100 visitors per day, the average pop-ups ad will generate about 90 subscribers each month, while a highly effective ad can generate closer to 275 subscribers per month.
The study found the following:
This begs the question: if pop-ups ads are so effective, why does it seem like people complain about them so much?
Isn’t that contradictory?
It might be in part because some people tend to complain about things.
Many people who complain about pop-ups have likely subscribed to those same pop-ups they’ve complained about.
However, there’s another reason: Pop-ups are displayed to every visitor.
Your conversion rate is based on your view rate. Since pop-ups need to be viewed to be closed, they’re basically being seen by 100% of your visitors.
Your conversion rate might be high, but the percentage of people who close your ad will be higher.
The people who complain about pop-ups are likely the ones who aren’t converting, and that’s going to be a large number of people.
Now let’s talk about why pop-ups are effective. There are a few main reasons this form of advertising works so well:
Now that you know why pop-ups are effective, it’s important to grasp some best practices to ensure you aren’t annoying your visitors. Yes, there is a way to deliver effective pop-ups without annoying your visitors.
Even when visitors close a pop-up window, that doesn’t mean they’re annoyed. The best pop-ups will appear smoothly and offer visitors an easy and fast way to close it. Most people only become annoyed at pop-ups that feel intrusive and can’t be closed easily.
You’ll only get improved conversions to your landing pages when people want what you’re offering. Make your offer irresistible and make sure it delivers on the promise. Over-deliver if possible.
Pop-ups become intrusive when they’re not easy to close. Make sure you have a clearly visible “X” in the upper right corner that is fully responsive to both clicks and finger taps on mobile devices. Create a thick, solid colored border around your pop-up to make the “X” more visible.
Don’t be afraid of people closing your pop-up – you want people to close it if they aren’t interested. If they can close it easily, they’ll be more likely to return to your site. If your pop-up is a barrier to accessing your content, they’ll bounce and hesitate to return.
Once a visitor closes your pop-up, don’t display it to them again. Most pop-ups can be programmed to not show up for returning visitors who closed it out, and it’s wise to program yours this way. You’ll lose a chunk of returning traffic if people have to close out a pop-up every single time they visit your website. If you’re running a blog, this will become a huge barrier.
Make sure your pop-up offer is relevant to the content on the page people are viewing.
Your offer might seem relevant to every page, but if you have any specialty pages with content that isn’t a match, turn off your pop-up for those pages or come up with a different offer.
Your offer needs to be clear and understandable right away or people will close your pop-up if they can’t figure out what you’re offering.
Studies have shown that you don’t want to display pop-ups immediately, but you should wait about five seconds. This seems to be the perfect timing. Five seconds allows visitors to understand where they are before they’re asked to sign up for your email list.
There are two elements that should be absent from your landing pages: navigation menus and pop-ups. Visitors to your landing pages aren’t the same as regular web traffic – they’re expecting something specific and a pop-up will be a frustrating barrier to access. For instance, when they’ve already read and clicked on an ad to get to your landing page, they just want to get what they’re after.
Email signup forms generate less conversions when they have more form fields. Many people ask only for an email address, while others ask for a first name as well. The latter is ideal since it allows you to personalize your emails. Three form fields tend to get the most conversions. Ask for more than three pieces of information and your conversions will likely fall.
However, getting fewer conversions isn’t always bad. Just because someone signs up for your free offer doesn’t mean they’re your market. You want to discourage some people from signing up when they’re not your target.
Exceptions to this rule vary depending on your industry and target market. For example, if you’re targeting professionals who must hold a specific credential, you’ll want to ask leads to identify their credential on your signup form for two reasons: First, this will help you disqualify leads that aren’t your target market. Second, you segment tag leads based on their credential, which will help you market to specific sub groups.
A click trigger pop-up appears when a visitor intentionally clicks on a link or image. The advantage to this method is that your visitors want the information provided by the pop-up since they have to click to get it. It should be no surprise, then, that click triggers convert 12 times better than standard pop-ups.
This pop-up will show up when a user shows intent to leave your website. An exit-intent pop-up is usually triggered when a visitor moves their mouse away from the website and toward the top of the browser.
Most exit-intent pop-ups say something like, “Wait! Before you go, here’s an offer just for you…” and many offer a generous discount. Use this to your advantage because exit-intent pop-ups work!
This is similar to the exit-intent pop-up, but with a conditional twist. This pop-up will only show up if a visitor has an item in their cart when they start to leave the page. With nearly 70% of all shopping carts abandoned, you want to capture as many sales as possible by bringing people back to complete their purchases.
You won’t capture everyone, but you will capture some people. The reason you won’t capture everyone is simple: not everyone is looking to buy.
Many people add items to their cart to compare prices, get shipping quotes, and some use shopping carts as a “wish list.”
Although word around the ‘net is that pop-ups are annoying, now you know that’s not the case. It’s not that pop-ups are annoying – it’s that improperly implemented pop-ups are annoying. And by following the best practices outlined in this article, you can craft effective and unwanted pop-ups ads that will capture more signups from your target market while avoiding annoying those who aren’t interested.
Your revenue is directly tied to your ability to generate targeted leads, and pop-ups are one of the best ways to get those targeted leads.
When you have a desirable product or service, your ads will be welcomed by your visitors and they’ll be happy to sign up for your email list.
To recap: when your goal is to generate leads, pop-ups will prove to be an invaluable addition to your site. When properly implemented, pop-up ads will help you capture leads that you can nurture to conversion in order to generate the revenue you deserve. If you haven’t yet implemented this effective advertising strategy, there’s no better time to start than right now.
With eCommerce quickly becoming the preferred way to shop, many other local businesses are struggling to keep up.
Massive online retailers like Amazon often dominate sales in just about every industry, which makes it hard for brick-and-mortar Local businesses to compete.
And it’s not always about better prices.
Often, it’s simply more convenient for people to buy everything they need in one place.
If you’re a local business owners looking for ways to get more Local leads/local lead generation, potential customers, or clients, you need to start using pay-per-click (PPC) ads management.
PPC ads offer something other marketing channels can’t: immediate traffic to your website.
Fast traffic will give you an advantage in your local market.
You can generate Local leads/local lead generation online from the entire world, and that’s great if you have a product or service that is globally relevant. However, when you’re a local business/local businesses, your local leads/local lead generation also need to be local. This is where local PPC ads come into play.
By running PPC ads that target people in your area, you’ll reach the most relevant segment of your market. And, as you probably know, highly targeted ads are more effective than general ads at generating Leads clicks and conversions.
If you’re concerned that you can’t compete with online retailers, here’s how you can use PPC ads to generate more local lead-generation strategies for your local business/local businesses.
Your Home page are a critical component in your local PPC ad campaign and it’s important to craft them intentionally. For instance, if your goal is to generate leads, make sure you have a powerful, enticing lead magnet that people see first thing when landing on your page.
If you’ve never made a landing page with a lead magnet, here’s how it works. Lead magnets are free offers provided as an incentive in exchange for contact information, and they’re quite effective. However, the success of any lead magnet depends on the market and the type of offer. For instance, some industries report higher conversions with video lead magnets, while others say text-based lead magnets convert better.
Creating a local lead magnet is no different from creating any other lead magnet, except the offer will be oriented toward local customers/potential customers. For example, here are several titles that would make excellent local PDF downloads:
These are just some examples of what you might offer people at the local level. Your local lead magnets can be PDF resources, videos, audio files, exclusive content, coupon codes, or anything else users might find valuable enough to sign up to receive. The only thing you need to remember is to maintain a local relevance.
Facebook offers the most detailed ad targeting capabilities of all PPC platforms, which is why they’re so effective. Facebook also has nearly 2.9 million users, a number that rises by 7.18% every year. Chances are, your market is on Facebook – you just have to know their demographics.
Here’s how it works. Say you run a local mail center and you’ve just hired a Notary Public. You want to get notary clients, but they need to be local, so you’ll run ads that target people in your area who might need notarized documents. For instance, you can target people who are getting married (engaged status), buying or selling a property, looking to travel, or people who work in administrative services.
Whatever your products or services are, you’ll want to target a narrow set of demographics in addition to people in your area to greatly improve your chances of getting conversions. You can do this to some degree on other ad platforms, but Facebook offers the most options and has the largest audience.
Facebook lead ads generate leads through a form without making users navigate away from Facebook. These ads are nearly 20% more effective than ads that send users toHome page to fill out a contact form. This makes sense considering people are more likely to convert when the process is easy, and nothing makes filling out a form easier than bringing that form upright inside of Facebook.
To get started with lead ads, run an ad and set the objective to “conversion.” Set the target Home page to a page that asks visitors for their email address.
Next, run a Facebook lead ad. This type of ad will open a Local lead generation strategies/local lead generation strategy form inside a user’s news feed. They can enter their contact information and submit the form without ever leaving Facebook.
To make this process smooth and easy, skip the manual export option and connect your managed Facebook ad account directly to your CRM.
This way, on the back end, your form will be connected to your CRM and your leads/local lead generation will be automatically tagged and segmented according to your CRM settings.
People love contests and giveaways when they provide real value. For instance, you’ve probably seen those giveaways where you can buy tickets for the drawing and the proceeds go to a charity. The potential to win an amazing prize is already enticing, but it’s even more enticing knowing the proceeds go to a good cause.
Your Home page will be the key to getting your leads to enter to win your giveaway. Here are the most effective elements to include on a giveaway page:
Contests are a bit more involved than a simple drawing, but they’re very effective and you can run a contest for just about anything. For instance, many organizations run PPC ads on Facebook for poetry contests that are judged by a single person, and this type of contest could be easily localized.
Some ideas for running contests include:
If you’re going to run a contest to promote your business, you definitely want to run PPC ads to get more entries and more attention. You never know who your ads will reach; if your contest is interesting enough it could even get picked up by the news like this live pottery competition.
Promotions are easy to promote through PPC ads. For instance, restaurants often run PPC ads for special events like open mic night, live music performances, and even just good deals on food.
To get the most out of these ideas, think about what kind of giveaway or contest you can run for your business. Once you have the logistics down, create a Home page for your promotion, contest, or event, and use it in your PPC ads. Just be sure your ad headline and image match your pages. It’s best to create your ad first, and then adjust your pages to match. This will ensure a smooth, connected experience for everyone who clicks on your ad.
If your product or service appeals to a global market, start creating landing pages for local areas and run your PPC ads to target various local audiences. For example, pick an area with multiple cities, like the Bay Area in California. Then, create one landing page for every major city. For instance, create landing pages for San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, Fremont, Sunnyvale, and Walnut Creek to start.
Craft your sales copy on each city’s landing page to speak directly to that market. What you write will vary based on your products or services, but find ways to tie your service or product to local culture, attitudes, and familiarities. Speak to your target audience with as much specificity as possible.
Once you have your local landing pages, you can use them for more than just PPC ads. They can actually become an integral part of your overall local SEO strategy when optimized for local search and local SEO (search engine optimization). You can continue running PPC ads to your local landing pages, but they’ll also come up in search results and generate targeted, organic traffic.
Now you know some great strategies to generate local leads/local lead generation with PPC ads, but if you’re not used to running your own ads, getting things off the ground can feel a bit daunting.
If you’d like to start generating local leads/local lead generation through paid ads, we can help. At PPC.co, our team of experts can help you establish a competitive advantage in your local market, whether you need help with an existing campaign or you’re just getting started.
To speak with one of our PPC experts, contact us today and we’ll get you a free proposal based on your individual needs.
Scaling and growing a PPC campaign is all finding areas for growth in relation to getting the most conversions for every dollar spent.
Believe it or not, many successful PPC campaigns waste hundreds and even thousands of dollars on wasted impressions.
In other words, they’re not ready to effectively scale.
This means that even if your local campaigns are acquiring thousands of impressions every week, your local PPC ads could be potentially falling on blind eyes and deaf ears.
Looking into every impression you receive is difficult, if not downright impossible.
Local businesses, in particular, are more fulfilled when they can convert ad impressions into foot traffic.
In paid search, optimizing PPC campaigns to achieve this goal is called local PPC.
A local PPC ad involves a lot of refinement around optimizing your local PPC ads for nearby searches to compel viewers to visit a location instead of a website.
This is done mainly through geotargeting.
If you’re not familiar, local PPC can be a complicated topic. However, like local SEO, local PPC isn’t as meticulous when you understand the benefits of geotargeting.
As such, this guide will explain all you need to know about both subjects.
To better understand local PPC, let’s provide an example.
Let’s say that you’re at home and want to order takeout for dinner. As you’re searching for restaurants online, you come across an ad for one of your favorite local restaurants that has begun to offer delivery.
Intrigued with the idea of having your food delivered, you click the ad and immediately place your order. As simple as this example sounds, this is what local PPC is. Even with a tight budget, a defined local PPC strategy can help you get your local search ads right in front of prospects with strong buyer’s intent.
With that said, local PPC is a paid search campaign that’s designed to target individuals within a specific region.
You can run these local PPC campaigns on both social media platforms and search engines, primarily through Google and Facebook Ads.
With local PPC, you only pay when a person clicks on your ad, so you have to be careful about who you’re targeting. Wasted conversions on people outside of your scope of service can result in an inflated budget over time.
Thus, the benefits of local PPC are:
With a local PPC strategy, your ads will only show up in front of people who are the most interested in your products and services, mainly because you control who your ads target.
Ideally, your ads should only target people who can benefit from your business. Since your local PPC campaigns is–by definition–local, you won’t have to compete with corporate enterprises. This means bidding won’t be as intensive, and you can actually stretch your marketing dollars to achieve even more conversions.
A successful local PPC campaign will endure less competition, in addition to more impressions and conversions.
As a local business running local business PPC, make sure potential customers and local searchers know you exist is paramount. By running local PPC campaign, you can improve your brand awareness in your community.
As online shopping becomes more popular, it’s never been more important to run a local PPC campaign. When your ads show up to relevant/target audience, they’ll be much more likely to convert since you’re targeting qualified leads instead of unrefined prospects.
Fortunately, local PPC ads are more measurable than other local marketing techniques, such as flyers and banners. By using these ads, you can more accurately track impressions, clicks, and conversions.
One of the most frustrating aspects of running a nationwide PPC campaign is measuring up to enterprises with larger budgets. What makes matters worse is that you could be up against a fierce competitor that’s receiving help from a top-tier digital marketing agency.
In local PPC, you’ll simply be pitted against other nearby businesses. This means you should know your competitive landscape better. Thus, it’s possible to achieve more success running a local PPC campaign compared to a broader one.
Now that you know what local PPC is and why it’s important, it’s now time to begin putting in the work to create an effective strategy. Here are some proven ways to get started:
When you decide to set up your campaign, make sure that your location is highly specific before moving forward. For example, you should even use your zip code to define your local services ads area.
With that said, it’s also important to include areas where you don’t do local business PPC to avoid targeting the wrong prospects. When you include a specific location, your campaign and budget becomes more efficient since your ads won’t reach people who can’t use your service.
The phrases you use in your PPC ads should also be highly specific and relevant to the location where you’re doing local business PPC. For this step, you can use Google Trends to see if people in your area are using “Chinese takeout” instead of “Chinese food near me.”
Also, make sure to include your service location in your ad. By including your city name in the headline and copy of your ad can disqualify ineligible prospects from clicking on your ad.
That way, you can save money by never paying for clicks from someone who’ll never convert. Using hyper-local phrases along with targeted keywords is the key to a successful strategy.
Running a local PPC campaign makes it simple to immediately test and optimize your ads based on real-time results. It’s important to stay vigilant and adapt your ads to changes in its performance, whether positive or negative.
During tests, you can perform A/B tests to conduct side-by-side comparisons to different aspects of your ads, such as headlines, copy, and call-to-actions (CTAs).
If you are already running an effective SEO campaign, you should write down your high-performance local PPC keywords and begin targeting them in your local PPC strategy. For example, if a certain keyword performs well for organic search, it may produce the same results for paid search.
You can gain incredible insights into the best-performing keywords people are using to find your website in Google Search Console. You can also use tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush.
Remember, SEO vs. PPC is not a mutually exclusive strategy!
By enabling ad extensions, you can add a lot of important details about your local business to your local PPC campaign. The more details you can add, the better your ads will perform.
Thus, you’ll get the most bang for your buck. The two types of ad extensions you should consider are for your phone number and location. This way, you can add your phone number and address to your ads so your leads can contact you directly.
Before you set up any ad extensions, ensure that your Google My Business (GMB) profile is up-to-date with accurate information. Your campaign will pull your data from your GMB profile.
These buttons make it easier for people to contact your business outright instead of visiting your website.
Again, you can run a local PPC campaign on both search engines and social media platforms. Try using both Facebook and Google Ads. Google Ads is clearly the most widely-used online advertising platform in the world.
Facebook Ads are just as recognizable, especially if your target demographics are constantly using Facebook in the first place.
Having a designated page that can convert qualified leads is key to making sure you aren’t wasting your money on ads that aren’t following through. This is called a landing page.
Instead of linking your ads to your website URL, use a landing page instead. This page should:
You may have to hire a copywriter and UI designer, but the ROI you can achieve from creating a landing page can be extremely beneficial to your bottom line.
Geotargeting is often synonymous with local PPC, and that’s for a great reason. Geographic ad targeting, or geotargeting for short, is an advertising strategy where the advertiser can choose specific locations where their ads will appear.
Geotargeting is popular on virtually any online advertising platform, from Google Ads to LinkedIn ads. The purpose of geotargeting is to place your ads in locations where prospects are more likely to convert, improving the ROI of your ad budget.
Here is what a sample geo-targeted ad looks like:
The good news for advertisers is that geotargeting is a rather simple concept. With this feature, your ads can trace the most qualified leads based on:
One of the most exciting facts about geotargeting is that your net can be as narrow and wide as you want. Below are some of the examples of geographical categories you can target in your ads:
This is the widest range you’ll ideally want to target. Outside of this range, your ads won’t be considered local, and then you’ll be bidding against global competitors. In any case, you use this category to address concerns your audience may be facing, such as 24-hour customer service and worldwide shipping.
If you’re still trying to reach a large audience but the “countries” range is too wide, then you can settle for this category instead. For this category, you can target specific provinces, regions, and states.
This is the perfect setting for local PPC ads. In this category, you can target leads (via location extensions) in specific radiuses and proximities from your business, rather than casting a wide net in regions and cities.
In fact, targeting a radius is best for driving foot traffic when you’re offering delivery services. The only caveat is that you must meet a certain threshold of traffic when targeting specific radiuses.
This means that if your target range is too small, your ads may not be seen at all, and you’ll just waste your time. On the other hand, if your target range is too large, then you could be targeting people who aren’t going to travel to visit your business.
If you’re going to use geotargeting to refine your ad reach, here are some effective strategies for getting the job done:
Brick-and-mortar stores often use location-specific ads to drive foot traffic. If you’re following this successful PPC strategy, take it a step further and create time-specific ads as well. For example, if your business is open at specific times, optimize your ads accordingly.
If you’re drawing a lot of visitors to your restaurant during lunch hours but want the same results for breakfast, then set your ads earlier in the day to accomplish this goal.
When you’re using geotargeting to segment your campaigns, this opens up the door of possibilities regarding the different aspects you can test, such as:
However, this is only on a limited scale. If you’re not sure how your campaign will perform, you can test your ad to specific markets before it goes live.
This tip may seem very basic, but do you understand how many location names are similar in any given city. When you misspell or use the wrong location name, your ads aren’t going to give mixed signals.
As such, make sure that your locations are very specific and accurate before running them.
As you can see, local PPC isn’t too difficult to understand. However, if you really want to establish a competitive advantage in your industry, you should hire a qualified PPC agency to run your ads.
Whether your ads aren’t reaching your target audience or you’re spending too much money, we can help. Contact us today to speak to a member of our team and receive a free proposal.
Paid search is a powerful resource for businesses for enhancing their growth and reaching out to their customers with any barrier in between. It is an essential digital marketing tactic for those who want to drive more (but relevant) traffic to their websites.
There are numerous ways of driving traffic to your website and improving your website’s ranking in search engines. However, they are time-consuming and need time to nurture. Whereas the paid search advertising has proven to be efficient and quick – ideal for those who need instant growth and results.
Marketers spent around $106.5 billion on paid search advertising in 2019; this amount is projected to grow to $132 billion by 2022. They have good reason for spending such exorbitant sums of money. An overwhelming number of buyers prefer to make purchases after seeing a paid ad suggestion, while 75% of people say paid search ads make it easier for them to find what they need.
That’s enough motivation for businesses to start investing in the right strategy. However, to get real results from your PPC campaigns, it is crucial to know how your PPC competitors are using this advertising resource.
When done right, paid search or PPC competitor analysis can make your paid search ad campaigns more effective and fruitful.
If you want to enhance your business’s online presence quickly, dive in to find out how paid search can help you achieve that goal.
Paid search is a simple yet effective advertising technique used by marketers to place ads on the Search Engine Results Pages. They pay only for the engagement they receive through those Google ads.
Paid search marketing allows marketers to advertise on SERPs through pay-per-click (PPC) or pay-per-view (PPV) means. Whereas the organic search results work with SEO to make websites rank higher that a competitor domain in the SERPs.
It is proven to be more successful than other strategies used by marketers as over 74% of brands claim that paid search marketing has been a massive driver for their businesses. And 79% claim it to be highly beneficial for them.
The world is moving towards automation, making businesses more efficient and smart. Today, technology allows marketers to sit and watch while the tech-enabled algorithms bring relevant customer data to them. Paid search is also an essential part of this automation drive.
Here is how it helps your business grow exponentially in no time:
According to the stats, Google ads reach over 80% of the internet audience across the globe. As a result, there is no doubt about the efficacy of paid search marketing and its potential to help businesses grow. However, none of this is possible without proper market research and robust PPC competitor analysis. Therefore, let’s dive in to explore these aspects.
This guide will help you understand:
Whether you are a small business owner, entrepreneur, or market leader in your industry, a PPC competitor analysis plays a crucial part in making your marketing strategy successful. Moreover, it is vital to identify the right marketing tactics based on industry trends. This is key to building a budget-friendly marketing model that fulfills your business’s needs.
A PPC competitor analysis is the foundation for any form of marketing, and paid search advertisement is no different. It harvests digital consumer insights into your strategy, helping you make informed decisions for your paid search marketing strategy.
A regular PPC competitor analysis is supposed to be performed regularly to help you outsmart your PPC competitors every day by coming up with better Rankings and ROIs. However, tracking every move of your competitors is crucial, but focusing too much on them and forgetting about the customers is never good.
Knowing your rivals is vital for your paid search strategy, but replicating everything they do isn’t! So, here are a few things that a Paid Search Competitive Analysis helps you recognize:
There are many methods and a vast array of intelligence tools available online for evaluating competitor exposure in paid search and PPC advertising. It is possible to retrieve PPC data on keyword performance, keyword volume, and average position through these resources. You can even find out how long your competitors run their ads for, when they were first and last seen, along with the landing pages they are directed to.
Most of these competitor intelligence tools offer tiered plans with monthly premiums, while some are available for free.
All PPC competitor analysis tools have unique features. Chances are that you’ll need a couple of them to carry out a 360-degree analysis since none of the tools offer all-in-one functionality. Some of these software are built explicitly for PPC competitor analysis, while the rest can also work for broader digital marketing purposes.
If you want a full-fledged resource that provides comprehensive PPC competitor analysis, covering as many metrics as possible, here’s what you need to look for.
Choose a tool that allows you to explore:
You should be able to explore the most valuable and least valuable keywords, current and past keywords, which your competitors are using or have used in the past. Also, you need to know the unique or overlapping keywords to understand the PPC competition and the opportunities that your competitors are missing out on.
You need to track ad copy changes, which occurred in the past or the ones that are happening currently. Ad copies are one of the hardest things to get right. Therefore, you need a tool that provides accurate past and present data.
You need to observe closely how your competitors have structured their ad accounts so that you won’t have to start from scratch when you build your business’s ad account.
When dealing with large packets of data, it can be overwhelming to find the information you need. Therefore, you need a tool that provides you with context and advice when exploring competitor analytics. You should look for tools that offer KEI and AEI guidance as they set the data in a helpful context for marketers.
Most tools don’t pay much heed to landing page analytics. However, it is the core of any PPC or Paid Search campaign because once the paid ad diverts clicks to the landing page, it decides if the prospects will convert or not.
You need to study if PPC competition are creating effective User Journeys that convert. Paid search is not always data and increased traffic; once the leads are directed to the landing page, the creative, design, interface, and copywriting of the page dictates the rest.
Functionality is considered as the core of any PPC or Paid Search campaign. You need a tool that offers a clear and easy-to-understand interface. The information or data provided should be intuitive, well-defined, organized, clutter-free, easy to access, and approachable through simple navigation.
In this guide, we have picked out five excellent target search competitor analysis tools to help businesses and marketers make informed decisions. The list includes PPC competitor analysis tools and some others that have a broader functionality and work for various other research purposes.
Ahrefs is one of the most commonly used tools for SEO (Search Engine Optimization). It is great for backlink and keyword research. However, it also has a decent functionality for PPC and Paid search competitor analysis, which serves as supplementary benefits for the SEO experts while providing keywords analysis that works for PPC.
You can find a comprehensive toolbar of exclusive features on Ahrefs’s dashboard and the “Paid Search” option on the bottom of that toolbar.
Working with Ahrefs for paid search competitor analysis allows you to explore:
Ahrefs provides accurate research data and has excellent SEO capabilities for looking up organic rankings in search engines, backlinks, and keyword data analysis. However, its PPC and paid search functionality are also commendable but secondary.
Pricing: Ahrefs is a paid tool with a subscription of $99 monthly premium.
SpyFu comes with concrete and an almost complete set of PPC and paid search competitor analysis features. It allows you to explore any domain, look up your competitors, keywords, keyword groupings, PPC keywords, and so much more.
Some of the key features of SpyFu include:
It is widely used for PPC and paid search competitor analysis worldwide to develop robust marketing strategies.
A critical feature of SpyFu “Google Ads Advisor” gives recommendations for the most profitable keywords based on data retrieved from your competitors. Moreover, it enables marketers to browse their competitors’ Google Ads campaigns and check out their split test results.
Pricing: SpyFu is a paid tool available for marketers at a premium of $39 per month, which can go up to $299 per month for extra features like multiple user accounts and API access.
SEMRush is somewhat similar to Ahrefs. It is a comprehensive digital marketing tool. It is widely used for numerous purposes when it comes to competitor analysis. The SEO features are unbeatable, but this resource supports PPC and paid search analysis as well. Therefore, some of its relevant features come in handy for conducting a paid search competitive research.
Marketers can use the “Advertising Research” feature of SEMRush to conduct their paid search analysis. Here are a few competitor features that you can examine with this tool:
SEMRush can provide adequate research results for SEO and paid search even though SEO is its core functionality. However, the PPC competitor analysis tools come in handy when you need insights into competitors’ PPC campaigns.
Pricing: SEMRuch is a paid tool with a starting premium of $99 per month.
Search Monitor helps you track ads across various locations and devices. The tool offers two primary services:
Since it is built for competitor analysis, you can easily monitor your competitors’ bids, content, landing pages, FTC compliance, PPC benchmarks, product listing ads (PLA), and more.
Pricing: It is a paid tool with a $599 monthly premium. There is no free trial either, but you can get in touch with their sales team to get a demo.
Buzzsumo is a fantastic competitive intelligence tool for Paid Search and PPC. It allows you to enter any competitor’s domain and lookup their content. with this tool, you can easily discover:
Most people prefer to enjoy their alerts features, which enable you to set up alerts. These alerts will notify the marketers about PPC competitors’ and their own brand’s updates.
Paid advertising isn’t easy or cheap. In fact, the PPC competition can be fierce! That’s why businesses are always on the lookout for ways to maximize their ad spend, get an ad ranked higher and get more value for PPC investment.
PPC competitor analysis is a reliable way to enhance your ads’ effectiveness as it informs your campaigns on what you are up against.
Understanding the metrics, finding the right intelligence and PPC competitor analysis tools, and then conducting a successful Paid Search Competitor Analysis can make a world of difference to building your next PPC campaign.
So follow the tenets defined in this guide, and make informed decisions when choosing the best PPC competitor analysis tools for you. This is key to curating a robust Paid Search Marketing strategy based on your accurate competitor analysis.
Advertising is crucial to the success of any business and this is doubly so when you’re using a method like PPC, where every click costs money so you want to do everything you can to turn those clicks into customers and not just window shoppers.
Not only that, it’s important to remember that a landing page is the first thing visitors see when they click on your ad. It’s not like typing in a direct web address, they are expecting the link to take them to something useful, easy to understand, and relevant to what they are searching for.
Having a default landing page for user’s search query that directly tells users what they want is a great way to help land customers when they may be sceptical or unsure
Dynamic landing pages are one tool in the arsenal of an effective marketing paid search campaigns that can help you to make your landing page more user-friendly and turn those potential customers into actual customers. Before we dive into the specifics of why you should use dynamic landing pages, specific landing pages & dynamic content/personalized content, we’ll break down what they are and exactly how to use them so that you’re up to speed.
So, normally when a customer searches for something, they are directed to a specific landing page for the ad you have running for a particular service search engines. This means that each landing page for each ad has to be different to maximize potential base on previous search history.
That’s where dynamic landing pages come in. A dynamic landing page can change base on the key variables such as search keywords, user locations, and other factors. This allows for a more customizable user experience.
For a standard/static same landing page, you’d have to make a page for every dynamic keyword insertion related to your topic to ensure that users were carried over to your product, business, or landing page content. This would be extremely time-consuming. I mean take something simple like hotdogs. Imagine creating a separate landing page for every search related to “best hotdog near me” just that one term alone could have multiple variances that would all need a landing page to capture traffic/site visitors.
Instead, why not create dynamic landing pages that is set to capture traffic from multiple keywords/search terms or variations of keywords. So, if someone searches for “best hotdogs near me “ instead of the singular “hotdog”, using dynamic landing pages/dynamic page would capture that as well without you having to make a separate page yourself.
Sure, one instance may not be that bad, but imagine doing that for every dynamic keyword insertion & of every ad campaign you run, ever. Not cool right? creating dynamic landing pages is an answer to otherwise having to create dozens or even hundreds of landing pages to reach all of your target audience.
After all, who wants to miss out on potential business when you have the means to fix the problem quickly and easily for quality score?
Now that you see the basic value of a dynamic landing pages work, it’s time to talk about setting one up that works for you.
To do this, you would create a landing page just as you normally would for any keyword. Depending on the service provider the exact details of the procedure will differ but the basic point is that you want your PPC landing pages to accept dynamic text. This means that the text of the page will change based on the keyword entered by the user.
So now, you can set the text to read appropriately based on whether they searched for hotdogs, hot-dogs, or hot dogs…subtle differences I know, but you’d be surprised what people type when they are searching for something.
URL Parameter, You can then set the URL parameters in your ad service program, ad groups, ad copy to accept the different keywords and direct users to the appropriate dynamic landing page. URL parameters simplifies the entire process and allows you easily manipulate one landing page to fit several keywords (dynamic keyword insertion). There are some best practices to using a dynamic landing page correctly though, it’s not a one size fits all solution.
Since you’re trying to attract customers and not scare them off, then you must need your dynamic landing page work the way it’s supposed to. This means presenting a page that makes sense and is easy for the reader to understand while still being relevant to your business.
The first rule is not to overuse keywords. Two or three alternate keywords are good enough for the page. Too many and you start to lose relevance and just confuse yourself, your customer, and even worse, Google.
Focus on primary keywords that are similar to your main one to draw in likely customers. Like with the hotdog example, close enough that you’re sure that’s what they are searching for.
Second, use dynamic text only where it makes sense. This means changing title headers or call to action, but not body text where dynamic text wouldn’t make sense. After all, your message needs to stay the same, but you can change things that drive customers to act on the call to action ( CTA).
Lastly, and probably the most important point of the entire lesson, make sure it makes sense. Can they still read and understand the page or does the changes made by the dynamic text make the page lose its point? If so, then you may need to reevaluate the changes you’ve made or alter the text so that it sends the right message. It’s something that you may need to play around and track/measure a bit to find what works, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll be better off in every ad campaign you launch.
Having a Dynamic page tied to your advertisements that are custom-tailored to what the user wants is the best way to ensure that they’ll stay and hopefully make a purchase or partake of your services, especially when every click counts.
Dynamic pages are a simple way to make sure that you’re giving as many customers as possible exactly what they want without spending hours of effort crafting a different landing pages or engaging with the wrong PPC agency. Contact us today!
The ultimate goal of any PPC campaign is very clear and that’s to improve visibility to achieve conversions. One of the most frustrating things of running a PPC campaign is to follow all of the best practices from guides on the internet and trial-and-error, only for it to fail in the end.
With that said, is your campaign generating lots of impressions that aren’t turning into conversions? If so, then you have a very common problem. Achieving impressions is simple.
It’s literally as simple as using the keywords Google Ad say will lead to specific traffic volume. However, you can never anticipate conversions, which makes successful campaigns hard to achieve.
Nonetheless, there are several effective strategies for transforming watchful eyes into paying customers. This guide will delve into a bunch of different high-octane strategies that will help you receive more conversions from your campaign, optimize your ad spend, and improve your ROI.
Let’s get started.
The age old proverb says that no one should “judge a book by its cover”. However, this is misleading when it comes to digital marketing and paid search. As a matter of fact, many people actually choose books based on the title, which isn’t completely unreasonable.
In the same way, the headline or title of your ads will play an integral role in its success. Case in point — if you come across a digital ad with a boring or irrelevant headline, are you going to click?
Of course not, and that doesn’t even matter if the product or service is phenomenal. Likewise, if the headline is engaging, you’ll be more likely to click and convert. It’s essential to pour a lot of time and effort into making sure that your headlines are perfect, and here’s how:
Your headline is arguably the most important aspect of your ads, and it can make a great first impression for your campaign.
The most successful PPC campaigns are segmented into different types of prospects based on who they are and how far they’re in your sales funnel. In order words, use a different landing page for different types of customers.
For example, let’s say that you’re selling accounting software. Clearly, different kinds of people will respond to this ad, ranging from freelancers to large businesses. Freelancers may have different questions, pain points, and expectations of what your product will provide as compared to large businesses.
Therefore, create a different landing page for different parts of your target audience. This is true even for specific products, such as accounting software for small businesses.
For instance, you can produce a landing page to reach freelancers, restaurant owners, and entrepreneurs. By achieving this level of personalization, you can create highly-relevant copy for incoming leads and convert them more efficiently.
Here’s a scenario that may sound familiar. You’ve conducted A/B tests for your ads, tried different photos and headlines. You’ve even rewritten most of your ads all to no avail.
If you’ve done this much work to repair your ads, ad copy, chances are that your ads aren’t the problem. The problem is most likely your landing pages. It doesn’t matter how much money you spend on Google ad/google ads conversion and how many high-performance keywords you’re bidding on, & Avoidind negative keywords.
If your landing pages aren’t correctly optimized, your ads will simply waste money. To avoid this possibility, make sure you employ these four strategies to properly fine tune your landing pages for success:
Single keyword ad groups (SKAGs) is a common paid search strategy that allows advertisers to create specific campaigns for single keywords. This results in highly-targeted and relevant campaigns.
You may be wondering, “how will SKAGs help my campaign”. Let’s say that you’re selling athletic equipment, which include:
When you use SKAGs, you can ensure that your ads for water bottles will only reach people who were searching for it. This way, you can avoid wasting money on ads that aren’t properly targeted to the right audience.
So, how will using SKAGs improve your conversion rates? The answer is that it will improve the quality score of your campaign. Thus, you can achieve a higher ROI. Basically, if I want to buy yoga pants, then I’m going to click on an ad that sells the product.
In the early 2000s, desktop computers ruled the world. Nowadays, mobile devices like smartphones and tablets are in control. In fact, most people use mobile devices to surf the internet today.
This isn’t all too surprising since you can’t go a full day without seeing people use their phones to check their emails, use social media, call friends and family, find businesses, and shop for online products.
Now, why does all of this matter in regards to Google Ads management?
People use the internet with different goals in mind with mobile devices. For example, a person is more likely to research the best mattresses on the market on a desktop computer.
This way, they can sit in a comfortable chair and read all of the content they want. Think about it — there aren’t a lot of people who will read a 2000-word blog post on “how to select the right mattress” on a smartphone.
Instead, a person using a smartphone will most likely try to buy something almost immediately. Therefore, mobile users usually have a higher buyer’s intent. Thus, you should customize your ads accordingly.
By using mobile-only ads, you can reach an audience that is more likely to convert. This will produce more sales opportunities for your business. It’ll also give you a great advantage over competitors who haven’t made this adjustment.
Run mobile only ads and start creating content (ad copy) that will appeal to people using their smartphones over desktop computers to interact with you.
Not all sales funnels are created equal, and they certainly don’t always look the same. Many businesses stick with the standard sales funnel format: online ad → landing page → purchase.
If your campaigns don’t have much more imagination than this, then you could be wasting opportunities that will help your organization achieve higher sales or brand loyalty.
To put it simply, not everyone is willing to visit a landing page and make an immediate purchase. To open the door to more conversion opportunities, try targeting keywords with low buyer intent & remove negative keywords.
Next, drive traffic to landing pages that will offer valuable resources in exchange for their email address. This way, you can advertise to these leads any time you want and keep close tabs on them.
You can promote content such as:
144 million Americans listen to podcasts everyday. This is a great way to reach and educate people that aren’t ready to buy yet. If you’re running a SaaS company, you can promote eBooks to educate leads on how your service will benefit them.
Google Ads don’t always have to be one-dimension. When used correctly, they can also elevate your inbound marketing strategy.
Here’s another common scenario — your ads and landing pages are working well but your conversion tracking rate is still in the toilet. What’s the issue? The problem could be that your target audience just isn’t interested in the services and products you’re providing.
That’s a targeting issue.
For example, let’s use the previous example of selling accounting software. Let’s say that you’ve targeted freelancers and even created a separate landing page that addresses all the information they’ll need to know about your product.
The problem is that you aren’t getting as many conversions as you’d hope. Try refining your audiences to fix this problem. Not all freelancers are the same. Some may make more money than others, and it’s very easy to just call yourself a freelancer if you’re in between jobs.
For this reason, your targeting needs to be more specific. Instead of targeting freelancers, target entrepreneurs. Use Google’s custom affinity audiences feature to add interests and different behaviors.
For example, you could target entrepreneurs who are in the beginning stages of starting their business and pitch your product to them instead of casting a wide net to all types of freelancers.
Improving your conversion rates isn’t always about making a sale right now. Some people have a sudden impulse to buy and others do not. Your conversion rate will only soar when you can reach both types of consumers.
As a result, your goal should be to generate leads from your PPC campaign and begin the steps in nurturing them into sales. The most important aspect here is the lead magnets you’ll need to use.
Essentially, if you attract the wrong types of leads, you’ll only waste your time and money, while reducing your conversion rates even further. It was just mentioned that eBooks, podcasts, and whitepapers are great selling aids.
However, lead magnets like these have to be captivating to your target audience. No one is going to download a boring whitepaper. It has to catch their eye. With that said, visual content (ad copy) may be the key here.
After all, 80% of people are more likely to engage with content that includes vibrant visuals.
Whatever lead magnet you choose to use, make sure that it’s visually appealing. If you’re operating in a competitive industry, your lead magnets need to stand out.
One of the drawbacks about promoting products and services online is the lack of trust many people have with businesses they don’t know. For example, if you need marketing services for your company, it can be hard to take an agency’s word that they’ll provide you with the highest ROI for your budget.
Your hard-earned money is definitely on the line.
As such, you should include social proofs that showcase your credentials and qualifications in your expertise.
Displaying customer reviews have proven to increase conversions by as much as 270%.
The more willing you are to include testimonials, reviews, and logo images of the brand you have worked with, the more your audience will be capable of trusting you with their private information and money.
PPC campaigns are a wonderful way of attracting online leads to your website where they can convert. The problem is that you can still be wasting money while trying to repair your campaign on your own.
When you choose to work with us, you’ll receive help from an industry-leading PPC agency. We help with more than just PPC management, but also help with issues like recovering from a Google Ads suspension and tailoring Google PPC remarketing to tie in with your Facebook ads campaigns. Contact us today to receive a free proposal and start boosting your Google Ads conversion rate.
With nearly 1 billion Instagram users as of 2019, this app has taken the social media world by storm in the past few years. The photo-sharing app is a great way to interact with people, but businesses of all sizes also use it to reach out to their target audience, increase engagement, raise brand awareness, and alternative sales funnel.
If you use Instagram properly, you can earn significant revenue through the social media platform without spending a lot. It is a great place to market your brand and products and generate website traffic.
Read ahead to see how much Instagram ads cost, the factors that influence these costs, and why it is necessary to use this platform to reach people.
Instagram is a massively successful platform that businesses take advantage of to grow their awareness. They use visual content such as pictures and short videos to advertise their brand through different campaigns.
An Instagram ad campaign launch instagram ads works well with a Facebook ad account. You can use your already existing one for Facebook promotional purposes or create a new Instagram business. However, it is better to use an Instagram account to understand your target audiences’ wants to increase your organic marketing efforts.
Facebook Power Editor and Instagram Ads Manager manage all Instagram ads considering your budget, time frame, optimization goals, and audience.
Your brand’s campaign objective determines the number of call-to-action (CTA) button options you can have on your Instagram ads. However, this number cannot be more than eighteen. Furthermore, the ads can have a website link, application download options, and online shopping options.
Social media marketing is at the top of its game in this day and age because of the billions of social media platforms’ users. Since Instagram is a popular app, there are several reasons why investing in its ads will be advantageous for your business.
Instagram has become a massively popular app, faring close to YouTube and Facebook. For your businesses’ purposes, you have to determine your audience’s percentage to respond to it. With so many Instagram influencers, you can reach out to them to influence their followers to consider your brand.
However, you can target the small-scale influencers instead of the big names to drive more engagement with the followers. This is because these influencers share a trusted bond with their intimate community of followers. When they recommend your brand to others, it sounds more trustworthy than selling it like an ad.
At present, your organic posts cannot have clickable links on Instagram. The app allows you to add a link in your message or caption, but you can either access it through their bios or copy-pasting the link in your browser.
You can add external links in Instagram advertising, allowing you to create designated destination URLs that lead to your website. Using your domain with an implemented Pixel enables you to monitor the website traffic your Instagram advertisements generate, which is not usually present on external website URLs.
Once you’ve created your brand’s presence, interested customers will want to know details about your brand and the products or services you sell. This allows you to tell them your story in instagram stories or by any another way and impress them to drive more conversions.
As a result, Instagram Advertising drive more traffic towards your website because of its billions of users discovering new products every day, making it possible for you to engage with more of your target audience.
As an Instagram user, you might have noticed that thousands of small and big brands use the platform for their business purposes. Some use it as an additional channel and their websites, while others rely solely on selling their products and services.
One of the most significant investments comes from brick-and-mortar businesses such as Nike. It focuses on Instagram to boost its sales, with the campaign focusing on customer relationships to build engagement and create trust in them towards the brand for better sales.
Instagram is an essential marketing tool today, even if you don’t want to use it for direct sales. It is relevant to many of the world’s population, and most businesses use this fact to advance their business. You have to reach out to your audience, and using Instagram in the right way can help you gain a competitive edge.
Instagram can act as a sales funnel and improve your revenue by working as an alternative market area to represent your brand and attract buyers.
Instagram is a great way to stay updated on what your competition is doing. You can follow your competitors, customer base, and approach to draw people in through the platform.
Keeping track of what others are doing and meeting the customers’ expectations is essential. You can learn from your rivals and their successful and unsuccessful campaigns to keep people interested.
Instagram Ads with destination URLs have a link click CPC (cost-per-click) range of about $0.5 to $0.95. For all metrics, the range is between $0.4 to $0.7, which involves all the clicks that an ad gets, including link clicks, comments, likes, average instagram cpm and shares.
Your instagram ad prices/ instagram ads cost depends on several variables. Your campaign objectives automatically increase or decrease, Your instagram ads cost depends on what you select (ad quality) and its link to the target instagram users engage/audience’s position in the funnel.
For instance, if your paid advertising/online advertising campaign objective is brand awareness, its cost will be less than something further down the funnel with a better value objective, like conversions. With a broad and cold audience, your chances of increasing your brand awareness may be less than those familiar with your business and what it offers. They are more likely to purchase from you or carry out some higher value action related to your campaign.
Your audience’s size also impacts your ad pricing. With a more significant audience target, the ad prices are lower due to lesser competition. However, as the audience becomes narrower with geotarget, the costs increase as their competition also rises.
Furthermore, your Click-Through-Rate (CTR) also impacts your ad pricing. With a lower CTR, the system might believe there is a disconnect between the target audience and the messages in your ad, resulting in higher costs. Your ads should be relevant to your target audience, and the CTR indicates the relevancy.
Four factors influence the Instagram advertising campaign costs:
The relevancy score is the relevancy Instagram attaches to your ad, considering your audience, determining its cost. Since Instagram wants to display relevant ads to people on their instagram feed, your score is decided by how people react to your ad.
The relevancy score will be higher with private responses to your ad such as commenting, clicking, liking, etc. But for ad hiding, you get a negative response, resulting in a lower score and decreasing your ad performance.
Naturally, ads that get a higher relevancy score get positioned over the lower ones. A more relevant ad results in you paying almost the minimum amount required to get higher clicks and more leads.
The amount you decide to pay for your leads determines how much you spend on your campaigns. Similarly, your bid amount also decides the money you spend on your ads.
You’ll have to pay more for clicks and impressions because Instagram has greater bid amounts. As a result, if your budget is only $1,000 and the bid amount is $5 per click, your ad will only receive 200 clicks. But, with a $2,000 budget and $5 CPC, you’ll get 400 clicks. If your bid amount is $0.8, you’ll get even more clicks for both scenarios.
Your bid amount impacts your budget and vice versa. These decide how much it will cost for advertising on Instagram.
Your Instagram advertising costs are dependent on your competition. For any product you sell, you have to reach your target audience, which your competitors are also targeting. As a result, your competitors influence the amount you spend on your campaigns.
With more people bidding for the same audience, a bidding war can arise where companies bid to get leverage over one another, possibly resulting in your CPC increasing as you bid against your competitors.
These rates impact your Instagram ads campaign prices based on the probability that people will act on your ad. Instagram wants to know the likeliness of your audience engaging with your ad.
Engagement actions include clicks and conversions, so Instagram promotes ads that are more likely to engage people and make them interact with the content you provide. The estimated action rates impact the Instagram ad cost.
Advertising can be expensive, yet it is essential to build brand awareness. As a result, you have to learn to manage the Instagram ads properly to get the most out of your social media marketing campaigns on a smaller budget.
To make your Instagram ads cost-effective, you have to be clear of your business goals and use careful targeting to avoid overspending. Use automatic bidding, so you don’t make costly mistakes throughout the learning process of using the platform.
If you create a preset daily budget, you won’t cross this limit, and the automatic bidding helps you stick with the fixed costs you’ve set for the Instagram ads for every month.
Furthermore, you can create particular landing pages with content related to your ad to maintain high-quality scores. Create a home page that has different types of information which is not particularly relevant to your ads.
You should test your ad copy and nail its relevance to decrease costs. The higher the relevance of your ad copy, the higher your ad’s position to reduce the CPC.
Instagram is a widely popular social media platform worldwide and is still rising as a casual interaction medium and an advertising and business channel. While thousands create ads, promote ads & use it to conduct business, it is still an unsaturated market.
Whether you are a business that is starting or has been in the market for a long time, you should stay relevant to your audience and use Instagram as an effective medium to grow your brand. It might become a better source of revenue, engagement, and awareness than Facebook.
If pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is new to you, the many metrics and terms might confuse you at first. The most common words you’ll see the most are PPC and cost-per-click (CPC). It’s good to offer quick summaries of both, but understanding what they’re about and how they’re related takes explanation, as we do below.
When you begin to focus your website efforts on gaining more visitors, you can choose managed search engine optimization or PPC advertising, among other things. Most websites do both.
PPC is a form of digital advertising where you pay every time someone clicks your ad.
You may have the campaign set up for a certain sum per click. Usually, site owners establish a daily budget they want to spend. The value of every click will vary based on search volume and competition.
Your other option when you choose PPC advertising is to pay for your ad’s impressions. This is also known as ‘views.’ The term means how many times your ad is put on a page from the advertising source, no matter if it was seen or not. Impressions are counted by cost per 1000 impressions or CPM. If you use Google Display Network ads, you’re probably paying per 1000 impressions.
Impressions don’t require the prospect to click anything. They may not take any action. With clicks, you know the person who clicked your link and visited your site. They haven’t viewed your site yet or bought anything but getting them there is step 1.
CPC measures how much a click costs you in a given industry for specific keywords. Cost depends on how popular those keywords are and how often they’re searched. If you run advertisements for ‘Adele bloopers,’ and Adele falls down the steps the next day, you’ll pay a much higher CPC because there will be so many more searches for that phrase. If you set a fixed budget, you won’t lose your shirt, but your funds will be gone faster.
CPC is one aspect of PPC marketing, but CPC may refer to the entirety of PPC advertising. CPC helps you determine how pricey a keyword phrase is against the advantage and strategies for gaining the clicks. It’s helpful to decide on the best terms to select and when you figure your return-on-investment when the campaign is running.
These factors decide what your CPC is, either on Bing or Google:
Keep in mind that having a high bid doesn’t mean you’ll win the auction. If you keep the highest quality score and ad rank possible, you can obtain an excellent return with your PPC ads.
Are you looking to get ideal results from your digital ad campaigns? Then you need to lower your CPC. Here are some sure-fire ways for great results:
The audience you target is a significant factor that will affect your cost-per-click for social media and PPC ads. You want to get your ads in front of people who desire your services or products and get a click. To lower CPC, determine who the audience is as accurate as possible.
How to do this? Think about the people most likely to line up and buy your products or services today. Who’s your ideal customer?
Consider age, marital status, purchasing habits, hobbies, gender, and occupation. All of these demographics affect the audience’s buying decision. For instance, single women who are 20 years old and like running will have different characteristics than married men who are 55 and love to sail.
When you refine the audience, you’re getting more specific on who you want to reach. Of course, your business could have several ideal customer types. You should have different ad groups for each one.
It seems obvious, but creating ads your audience will respond to is essential. The relevancy of each ad affects social media and PPC advertising.
With PPC, the relevancy of the ad applies to the quality score. It’s a significant factor that affects the quality score of each ad. Google or other search engines will check the keyword selection and the ad to check that it dovetails with those keywords.
When you own a high-quality score, your ads will be placed higher. You’ll get better leads. Also, you can get a lower cost-per-click because of the ad’s high relevancy. In this way, you can drop your CPC with effective pay-per-click advertising.
When you do your social media ad buys, the relevancy of the ad affects your cost-per-click. Social media websites strive to put relevant ads in front of the appropriate audience. When you make your ad highly relevant to your chosen audience, your cost decreases.
If your ads aren’t quality, they may not only receive a poor score, but they could also be suspended from Google altogether.
Some write it as an afterthought, but the CTA is possibly the most essential part of your digital ad. It gives the prospect instructions on how to interact with you.
An effective CTA matters because it nudges the person in the appropriate direction. Many prospects will be intrigued by the ad and want to move forward.
If you’re doing PPC ads, you’ll want a compelling CTA on the landing page. This will grab more leads for your site.
Don’t make the CTA generic; if you say, ‘click here,’ yawn! They aren’t learning anything about the next stop.
Try something specific, such as ‘download your free report now.’ They know what’s going to happen, and they’re getting something valuable to them.
Now that you’ve learned more about CPC, PPC, and how to lower your cost-per-click, you should be ready to craft some compelling ads that will make your business more profitable.
Have you been thinking about running some Google Ads, but you are not sure what you need to know or what the extensions are for? Google Ads Extensions provide additional data we can add to any ad. Being a free tool, Google Ads Extensions gives us more details for all the Google ads we place, such as locations, additional links, prices, and more. Let’s go over why using Google Ad Extension is a must in any ad campaign and what all of these extensions are used for.
We get asked this question all the time. However, hopefully, you can understand why we would take full advantage of Google Ad Extensions with our answer. If you cannot see the benefits of such a powerful free tool, then allow our team of experts at PPC.co to break it down for you. Rest assured, there is no reason not to be using Google ad extensions unless you like to burn your own money.
Google Ads Extensions increase your Google ads rank. Those Google ads that have a higher ad rank will appear above simple ads during a user’s typical searches. Appearing above simple Google ads benefits your company. Ads at the top of the page are typically clicked more and can also extend how recognizable your brand is. Being free, Google Ads Extensions can increase your ad rank but will not increase your cost per click.
There are no additional costs to add extensions to your ad campaign. The cost per click on the ad, including extensions, will be charged, but no charge for clicks on seller ratings. Examples of this are if someone clicks the location extension to access directions or clicks the call extensions to call the business. For a detailed breakdown of the cost-per-click, Google has some great information.
Long story short, the actual cost per click for ads with extensions is calculated the same as for ads without any ad extension.
These tips will help with which extensions to use.
Extensions can be approved or disapproved, like keywords and ads. If an extension is disapproved, it will need to be re-evaluated and edited to be reviewed before it will automatically begin showing.
Depending on the type of business, the advertisement will be different. Google extensions are mostly automated extensions and will use the best fitting extension depending on what is currently being searched. Information from the homesite and ad-campaign is all calculated when choosing which extension takes priority.
Knowing what each extension can do and what their role is best suited for will be key in making the most of each of them. Keeping the goal of the business in mind while making the most of all ad space is critical when using google ad extension.
Lead form extension’s will help capture potential customers’ interest when they are searching, watching, or discovering relevant content. This extension is only available in video campaigns but can obtain a lot more leads.
There are two types of lead form extension’s:
Lead form extensions have many requirements before they are enabled. Here is more helpful information on lead form extensions.
After setting up Location extensions, people can easily find retail locations that sell your products or services. This is an excellent option for customers who are deciding what and where to buy. This is best used by manufacturers who make use of retail stores to distribute their products. Here is more helpful information on affiliate location extensions.
The locations extension will show people your location, a call button, and the link to your business details page. This can include important information such as your hours, photos of your business, and the most crucial part, directions on how to get there.
Businesses that want a lot of foot traffic will benefit the most from this extension. When our night out with friends gets canceled at the last minute, and we search for “best cheesecake near me,” this is the extension that brings us the ads for nearby cheesecake. Here is more helpful information on location extensions.
Adding additional text to your ad with some flavor such as: “free deliveries” or “24/7 live customer support.” This extension is fully customizable. Allowing up to 10 different callouts to show in a single ad. Making the most of callout extensions would be to show unique or specialized services or products you offer. This can convert more people offline. Here is more helpful information on callout extensions/callout extension.
This will work best when the ad has a good deal. Not for something like 2 for $5 and now 4 for $10.00. Bringing pictures and icons with direct clickable links to products or services. This allows can show up to 8 different options at a time. Allowing an easy and convenient way for everyone viewing the ad to see exactly what is offered.
Showing your hot deals or limited offers right on your ad is a great way to encourage the compulsive shopper in all of us. Here is more helpful information on price extensions/price extension.
Besides your great-grandmother, everyone is using a smartphone. Why not make it easy for them? Those with an Android or IOS device can get access to everything your ad offers in a single click. App extensions can also automatically begin the app download if desired. Among other options, a click can lead to google ads account, campaigns, and ad group. Here is more helpful information on app extensions.
Seller ratings are a detailed but easily and quickly absorbed review of the seller. Seller ratings will show a rating out of 5 stars, the number of ratings received, and the qualifier, which will highlight why a particular rating was given (if there is sufficient data). An example would be a delivery service that may have a 5-star rating for always delivering on time.
Seller ratings only show when:
Besides the structured snippet extensions having the longest name, it is also one of the most beneficial. This extension will do a lot of the work. What it does is when people search on Google, the ads will show more information from the content it is advertising if it is relevant to their search. This is done by automatic analysis from Google. This relevant information added to your ads can translate into more clicks from interested visitors.
Now that we can see the basics of most google ad extensions, we want to make sure we are using them to their full potential. Luckily most of them are automated.
Each ad can use multiple extensions at a time because not every search will trigger each extension. So, the best practice is to make use of every available extension and enable all of them.
Extensions can also be scheduled individually. Sales and promotions that only run for a limited amount of time are common in business so being able to schedule these things in advance and have the process automated is quite nice.
Ad extensions that are customizable such as the callout extensions, will do well to be monitored. If using some simple phrases or maybe quirky ones, it will be good to know if it is drawing in more business. Ad extensions have an entire page dedicated to viewing how well they are performing. Not only can the clicks be viewed, but impressions, related costs, and even more statistics are available.
Pay-per-click campaigns are our specialty. We audit your current PPC campaign to evaluate what to fix. We also optimize client landing pages, for improved PPC results. Squeezing the most out of every resource is a lot like licking your fingers after a good meal. Here at PPC.co, we have the knowledge and experience to help you get the most out of your ad investment.
If you run a Google Ads campaign, you want all of the people who view your ads to be legitimate prospects.
But sometimes an ad campaign can receive clicks that are malicious competitors who want to waste your ad budget? And what if some traffic is coming from bots?
This is what is known as ineligible clicks or invalid click’s. This article describes everything you should know about ineligible clicks.
If you watch your site statistics carefully, you probably know it receives its share of spam traffic, especially if you have a comments page. Bot comments are irritating and can fill your inbox and waste time. But what are invalid click’s about?
The term means an action that a bot or person takes where the link you paid for is clicked on by accident or a system did it. Invalid click’s are usually due to:
Spambots can be really annoying by clicking constantly on the paid link, costing you hundreds or thousands of dollars. When you remember that some popular keywords cost more than a steak dinner for two, it can have a really big effect on your ad budget.
Some malicious competitors may try to damage you by draining your budget. Others may work for click farms who click paid ads as well as social media site posts. Believe it or not, click farms are out there and they are profitable for the site owners.
Or a malicious link could be done by someone with an ax to grind.
When you first set up your account, you have an option to customize data views. The default is ‘people in or who are interested in your target locations.’ This is recommended, but if you don’t alter it, you could have some PPC fraud or abuse going on.
You can change the campaign settings and reduce some of the ineligible clicks by changing your recommended settings. Choose ‘People in your targeted locations.’
Next, if you click Campaigns, you will notice 3 columns. Select ‘modify’ and you can add another column to see ‘invalid click’s’ and ‘invalid click rates.’ After you add them, you can review in seconds the campaigns that are being hit with invalid click’s
Google attempts to track invalid click’s and you may see a refund in your account for them from time to time. The refund part of your bill will be noted. You also can see invalid click’s that you won’t get charged for in your ad campaign.
Invalid click’s and click fraud may sound the same but they aren’t. The result is mostly the same but the reasons are quite different.
As we have explained, invalid click’s and ineligible traffic are usually caused maliciously or by accident. You’re paying for every click so repeated clicks can drain your account fast.
Click fraud, however, means that the clicks are malicious in nature and want to defraud the site owner or Google. Click farms are definitely click fraud. So would your angry ex-girlfriend who clicks on your website’s ads.
Google keeps track of these behaviors. It has processes set up to shield you from repeat clicks and automated clicks. The search engine watches timings, IP addresses and other questionable activity to protect advertisers.
Google tries to reduce the impact of invalid click’s and click fraud on customers’ ad budgets. But the invalid click’s Google finds and pay you back for are often a fraction of the real cost.
We’ve gone over what ineligible clicks are, how they happen, and other vital information. Now we’ll detail how to prevent ineligible clicks from damaging your PPC campaigns:
Change your ad campaign stat data by adding several columns that relate to your campaign’s invalid click’s. It’s important to remember that you will not be charged for clicks that Google says are ineligible. However, you can still be paying for bogus clicks that Google missed.
Some site owners purchase a click fraud prevention program that tells you exactly the clicks that are invalid. However, if you don’t want that, it’s possible to find them yourself. But you have to watch and really understand your ad campaign stats. Then you can see sudden spikes and other sketchy activities.
You should carefully go over any time there is a change in your account’s KPIs. Be on the lookout for the biggest sudden changes. Are they explainable or a mystery? For example, a major change could be because of changes you made in your campaigns recently. On the other hand, they could be a sign of a bogus click attack that Google didn’t spot.
Display network advertisements are one of the most frequent sources of ineligible clicks and invalid traffic. The Google Display Network has many benefits and a lot of vendors get excellent traffic. However, there are too many low-quality sites and sketchy website owners.
They could click advertisements on their own site to make an extra buck and get no results for you. If you don’t remember to block them with an automated solution, it’s your job to review your ad placements and exclude sites that don’t convert.
After you include the most important columns, review the campaigns that are seeing the most invalid click’s. Attempt optimization by going over your settings for keywords and targeting.
Approve the changes and check if the invalid click ratio decreases. Google also says you should pinpoint and improve areas of your account with low conversions.
Ineligible clicks and invalid click’s can be a real problem for advertisers. With the above ideas and tips in mind, you can regain control of your advertising campaign and delete those ineligible clicks.
If you do a lot of Google searches (who doesn’t?), you may see ‘People Also Search For’ (PASF) when digging up information on a variety of topics. It’s something to pay attention to when doing your website’s search engine optimization or SEO.
The box that you see on search engines for People Also Search For has been around for a long time. But it became much more important for website rankings in Google after 2018.
These days, PASF as well as ‘Searches Related To’ are fantastic keyword research tool for companies wanting to find relevant keywords that consumers are using in their related searches. You and your SEO strategy team can come up with tons of content ideas that Google itself thinks are of interest in your niche.
Let’s take an up-close look at PASF today, as well as how much it has changed over time. We’ll also detail how your SEO team can get the most out of it to get more qualified traffic to your site.
Most of us don’t know about the history of People Also Search For. No one ever heard of the phrase a decade ago, but now it’s super important, as are knowledge graphs.
Google has a lot to say about PASF, so it’s wise to listen to them. One Googler said recently that it’s possible for Google to answer a question before the searcher even asks. The facts that are shown are search result of what other users are looking for in that subject.
Back in the day, the PASF box was a sort of free agent, especially for related searches to films and related topics. It wasn’t even connected to the knowledge graph. PASF was just at the bottom of the search engine results pages with related images and topics. But smart SEOs can use PASF to boost their Google ranking position.
These days, PASF is usually above Google’s related Google search field. So, it’s quite simple for consumers to see the differences that the search engine is making for the two features, although they’re very similar.
PASF keywords can provide plenty of options for various topics that are related to a Google search. But related searches can offer answers that are more specific.
To put it simply, the earlier versions of PASF provided answers by looking at the things we like in film or music. Following that logic, Google would give us answers that seem to mirror our tastes. But Searches Related just shows varying organic search results for people who asked the same thing.
This all disappeared in 2016. As it is today, the search for PASF box that was a ‘free agent’ a few years ago is back with the knowledge graph. So, it seems there are two boxes with the same functionality but aren’t called PASF.
And that is what has given us PASF as it is this year. The one we see today, a new type of PASF, has changed a lot. In the latest version, thumbnail images are taken out and every related topic is shown as an organic result. Some say the new version is a mix of PASF and Searches Related.
A lot of research has been done on PASFs and there is much to be learned by studying the data. One survey found that the PASF keywords box shows for about 60% of 15k SERPS that were watched for a week on PCs.
The Search result changes a lot when checked for mobile, though. PASFs showed up more than 85% of the time when mobile and PC were combined.
The stats show that PASF isn’t just an experiment that Google has tried for a bit and may do away with. No, the chances are that PASF keywords will continue to be used and expanded.
Another survey found that 8.8 PASF boxes for every SERP appear for one keyword. It’s also intriguing that SERPs with as many as 10 People Also Search for showed up even more often. It was also determined that most search results featured PASFs in the top 10!
It is hard to find out where one search page ends and another starts because rank clustering suggests that PASF keywords are highly related to web page 1 results.
We can’t say for sure why this is. But we do know the PASF keywords-related box for PC doesn’t show as many topics when you compare it to PASFs on mobile phones. Stats show that about 95% of PASF boxes on mobile had eight topics, while 96% of PASF boxes on PC had six topics. The others had between two and five. But the #1 isn’t seen because thepreferred search engine understands things don’t work as well when there is only one search result.
Smart SEOs can get ahead of their competitors by expanding the content on their website to answer PASFs. You can do this by writing interesting content that is related to what you sell or promote, but also answer PASFs.
Also, if you find that people are bouncing when they come to your site, take another look at PASFs for your common keywords. This suggests you should make the page more interesting and informative for these readers.
Choosing one of these to focus on isn’t needed. No need to pick and choose. Just make your website content more informative and longer so people find out more information. If you produce content that gives search results for PASF keywords and PAA, you’ll get more people coming to your site. This also will build trust for your site and brand, which are huge helps in Google’s eyes.
It is clear to us Find PASF keywords are an incredibly important part of Google search results today! If you want to gain a better search rank, your SEO experts would do well to focus on answering those questions well on your websites.
Hopefully, you have a clear idea of what to do with PASFs to ensure you get the best possible qualified traffic.
If you’re going to pour thousands of dollars into a search engine marketing (SEM) campaign, you want to know that you’re getting as much return on investment (ROI) as you possibly can.
And while there are plenty of ways to optimize the ads themselves, much of the success (or failure) ultimately comes down to the landing page.
A pay-per-click (PPC) ad is incredibly powerful, but it’s also limited in the sense that it can’t “create” a conversion – it can only serve as a catalyst. In other words, the ad itself is responsible for driving targeted traffic to a destination. It’s then the landing page’s responsibility to convert that paid search traffic into an opt-in, sale, or another type of conversion.
Whether you’re building your first landing page/landing pages or you’re looking for ways to improve or Optimize landing pages you’ve already developed, there are some strategic steps you can take to enhance results and generate better ROI. Read on to discover more!
For starters, let’s get clear on what exactly a landing page conversions is and why it matters. And the best way to do this is by thinking about it through the lens of your SEM campaign.
When creating a PPC ad campaign, one of the very first requirements is to determine a high-level strategic goal. Usually, your goal will fall into one of three buckets:
The goal will determine the offer. And the offer will be presented on the landing page/landing pages as a way of hooking your target audience after they’ve clicked on your PPC ad.
While there are dozens of tips and strategies we could discuss for optimizing PPC ads to ensure they’re driving qualified traffic to your page, that’s a topic for another post. In this article, we’re assuming that you’re driving the right people to the landing page/landing page optimization. Thus the primary challenge is figuring out how to create a landing page/landing pages that presents the right offer to these people and moves them to take action on your high-level strategic goal.
In the simplest terms, your landing page optimization is the percentage of traffic that follows through on your desired action for them – whether that’s filling out an opt-in for a lead magnet, purchasing a product, or registering for a webinar.
To use clean and simple math, let’s say you drive 100 people from a PPC ad to your landing page/landing page optimization, where your goal is to have people give you their email address in exchange for a white paper that you’ve created. If 17 of these visitors fill out the opt-in form, your conversion rates are 17 per cent.
That’s obviously an oversimplified illustration, but it gives you an idea of how this number is calculated. Now the question is, what sort of average conversion rate should you be aiming for?
This is a challenging question to answer with a simple number or percentage. And that’s because every business, target audience, SEM campaign, and industry is unique. When you layer them all together, you get infinite possibilities. What’s good for one company in one industry might be a waste of resources for another business in a separate industry. There’s just no way to provide an honest benchmark without (a) giving some companies a false sense of security, and (b) discouraging other companies who are doing fine.
To underscore this point, consider two illustrations:
The reality is that both of these campaigns are successful, despite the fact that Amy has a 7 percent conversion rate and Susan has a 1 percent conversion rate. In fact, despite having a much lower rate, Susan’s ROI is significantly higher than Amy’s.
While both of these individuals would be happy to generate these results, it just goes to show that the idea of a “good” conversion rate is situational. Every business, product, and industry will have its own thresholds. It’s up to you to determine whether your conversion rate is translating into an ROI that justifies the expense and effort of the SEM campaign.
With all of that being said, we do want to give you some idea of conversion rates across industries. Here are some median values taken from an Unbounce analysis of thousands of landing pages:
It’s important to note that these are median rates – meaning they don’t account for the large volume of low-converting pages or the handful of high-converting ones. It’s also worth noting that the goal for all of these pages is targeted, even local lead generation, not direct sales. Still, the data gives you a small snapshot to show how you stack up.
Whether your landing page/landing pages have a low conversion rate or you’re already doing well, there are always improvements that can be made. So let’s dive in together and explore a few of the top tips and techniques you may be able to leverage in an effort to generate better ROI from your SEM campaign:
Want to know the truth? On average, just 20 per cent of people will continue to read past the headline on your landing page. That means four out of five people never engage with the rest of your page.
If you want to generate a better landing page/landing page optimization, it starts with getting more people to read past the headline. And you do this by writing better headlines that speak directly to visitors and motivate them to learn more.
Here are some helpful tips for better headlines:
There are world-class copywriters who have spent decades studying headline writing and still haven’t mastered it yet. So don’t assume that you’re going to craft killer headlines overnight. However, the more you learn, the better you’ll get. Start with these tips and test what works.
The average human attention span is about on part with a goldfish. If you want to engage landing pages/landing page visitors and turn them into customers, you have to grab them right away. This can be done by focusing the majority of your efforts on above-the-fold content and design.
Above-the-fold content, which is anything a visitor sees on their screen without having to scroll, is prime real estate. Avoid overcrowding, but be sure to include a clear value proposition and call-to-action (CTA).
As humans, we have a certain “herd mentality” about us. When we see other people who we deem to be like us performing certain actions, we have a natural tendency to do the same. Following the actions of the masses is a way of lowering risk and reducing decision fatigue. Whether consciously or subconsciously, we think, “If they’re doing it, it must be right/good/smart for me to do it, too.”
We’re not going to get into a philosophical discussion of whether basing your decisions on the actions of the masses is a good or bad thing. Instead, we’re just telling you that’s how the world works. And if you want to boost your landing page conversion rates/landing page optimization, you can use it to your advantage.
The best way to tap into this herd mentality is to utilize social proofs, which is basically anything that signals to a prospective customer that other people are gaining value from your products or services.
Examples of social proofs include testimonials and reviews, ratings, data and statistics, endorsements, case studies, etc. By adding these landing page elements to your landing page/landing page optimization, you establish proof and trust.
Social proofs could also mean managing your company’s reputation online–even using pay per click directly.
For best results, pepper social proof throughout your landing page. Another best practice is to include social proof right before or alongside a CTA.
Nothing kills landing page optimization/landing page conversion quite like friction. More specifically, you’re doing yourself a disservice if your opt-in forms or checkout processes contain multiple steps.
Simplifying the steps it takes to follow through on a conversion, like getting a lead magnet or buying a product, creates significant lift.
If it’s an email opt-in, only ask for the bare minimum. Name, email, and phone are the absolute maximum – though phone numbers will hurt your opt-ins rather significantly. (Only include if necessary.) If you get away with just their first name and email – or only the email address – it’s better.
When it comes to an actual transaction, one-step or two-step checkout is important. Anything requiring three or more steps to completion will lead to a massive spike in shopping cart abandonment.
The CTA is where the rubber meets the road. Every landing page should have exactly one CTA. It can be inserted multiple times throughout the landing page/page – and even worded slightly different – but there’s never more than one CTA.
Looking for a few ideas for high-converting CTA copy? Here are some options that work really well:
The key to CTA copy (and really any element of your landing page) is to split test and find out what works best. Over time, optimizing for CTA copy can take a landing page/page and turn it into a great page.
Distractions have to go. Any element that doesn’t directly add value to the user and push them closer to the point of conversion is unnecessary and must be eliminated.
A landing page is not a work of art. It’s not designed to be a piece that you place in a web design portfolio and wow people with. A landing page’s sole focus is driving increase conversions. Run everything through this filter.
Stock photos serve a purpose. They’re free, accessible, and can serve as compelling visual assets in certain areas of a marketing campaign (like blogging). However, stay far away from generic stock images on landing pages.
Consider this case study, in which a truck driving company was selling lessons online. The goal of the landing page was to get more website opt-ins. By simply changing the cover photo from a stock image of a truck driver to a photo image of a real student, they were able to increase conversions by 161 per cent. Real pictures also work well in your PPC retargeting campaigns.
There’s something about seeing a real face and a genuine image that builds trust and makes a landing page/page more relatable. When possible, look for opportunities to humanize with actual images!
Anything you can do to draw a visitor’s eye to the CTA is a good thing. And sometimes you have to be overt about it.
Directional cues, like arrows, are excellent for showing people where to look. However, you can also use more subtle cues, like a picture of a person looking to the right (when the opt-in is to the right). The human brain picks up on little details such as this.
The first version of your landing page won’t be the last. Expect it to go through multiple iterations before you hit your stride. Reach the “best” iteration faster by using different tracking tools to see what’s working on your page.
There are plenty of neat landing page optimization tools/tools available as add-ons to a landing page. Heat maps, for example, show you where people are looking and spending most of their time on a page. Scroll maps let you know how far people are scrolling down a page. Confetti reports can even show you where individual clicks are occurring.
The fear of missing out, search engine optimization or FOMO, is one of the driving factors behind why people make purchase decisions. Thus any time you can leverage scarcity in your copywriting and CTAs, you should do it.
Phrases like limited time, limited quantities, today-only, and ending soon are all effective. Countdown timers also work well, particularly for webinars, events, and sales.
As annoying as they may be, there’s one simple reason why so many marketers continue to use exit-intent popups: They work!
Exit-intent popups, which are the screen overlays that emerge when a user’s pointer leaves the screen and appears to be ready to close out the page, are great for capturing leads that would otherwise be lost. Test them out on your landing page and see what you think.
A perfectly optimized landing page can’t do anything on its own. In order to generate a positive ROI, you need traffic. More specifically, you need to drive targeted, cost-effective traffic to the page. And at PPC.co, we can help.
Through a combination of time-tested techniques and the latest industry best practices, our team of experienced PPC experts provides tailored strategies designed to help businesses across a variety of niches generate massive value from their SEM campaigns.
From search to social landing page/page, our comprehensive Google Ads PPC management services have everything you need to win. Contact us today to learn how we can help you!
Keyword research is crucial to online marketing success, because keywords still govern the way people find information online. Keywords help us accurately find the information that we are looking for among the flood of information on the Web.
As such, proper keyword research with quality keyword research software allows you to understand what set of keywords consumers are using to find what they need. It also allows you to select proper keywords for an SEO campaign based off key metrics such as search volume, competition, and seasonal demand.
But with all the research tools available out there, which one should you use?
Here’s a hint: Marketers are vying for a prime spot on Google. Doesn’t it make sense to use a keyword tool owned by Google?
Google’s own Google Ads Keyword Tool is one of the best keyword research tools available. This is largely due to the fact that most other keyword research tools pull data directly from Google’s tool via API. While 3rd party tools often do a better job of displaying Google’s data and combining that data with other data to present proprietary or unique insights, they are broken as often as Google changes its keyword tool (which, lately, has been daily).
Since most 3rd party tools draw on data from Google’s keyword tool, my experience with them has been one of unreliability. Furthermore, the proprietary data insights that are often provided by 3rd party keyword research tools are often misleading, inaccurate, or downright useless.
Add in the fact that Google’s keyword tool is free, and you have a compelling case. Let’s take a close look at this awesome keyword research tool.
In recent years, Google Adwords Keyword Tool’s interface has gone through several transformations, but the latest has resulted in a cleaner and simpler-to-use interface.
On the main interface is the word or phrase box, where you type the keywords you’re researching. Right below it are Website and Category.
Right below the main box on the interface is the Advanced Options and Filters feature, which lets you more specifically target your research to certain countries, languages, and devices from which traffic is coming.
On the left are several features that let you customize your research further by selecting the match types of the keywords you’re looking for, whether broad or exact.
For the sake of illustration, I’ll walk you through the steps on how to do research for keywords based on Exact Match, which I recommend using for SEO campaigns.
Let’s say you’re gunning for “LinkedIn Marketing”.
1. Type “LinkedIn Marketing” on the Word or phrase box.
2. You can leave out category for the keywords we’re using here, but for accuracy, I recommend you choose the most appropriate category for the keywords you’re researching.
3. Click on the Advanced Options and Filters feature.
4. On the left hand side of the page you’ll see Match Types
Now it’s time to move on to the next phase of the research – gleaning information from the results.
The Keyword Ideas section shows the main keywords, i.e. “LinkedIn Marketing” and the list of variations for the keywords, the Competition and the numbers for Local and Global Monthly Searches.
The list of Keywords column shows results for the main keywords and its variations. In the case of Exact Match, the column shows the exact set of words or phrases consumers use to learn about “LinkedIn Marketing”.
The Competition column shows how competition looks whether it’s Low, Medium or High. Aim for keywords with Low competition. Keywords with low competition will have a better chance of hitting the first page of Google’s search results.
But don’t discount keywords with Medium to High competition; you can target them for your long-term campaigns.
The Local Monthly Searches column shows the average number of searches for the keywords in a specific country or region in a typical month. Global Monthly Searches, on the other hand, shows the average number of people worldwide looking for information on “LinkedIn Marketing”.
For easy reference, you can download the results in spreadsheet format by hitting the Download button right above the Keyword Ideas section.
Combine insights from Google’s Keyword Tool with data from an SEO competition comparison tool such as my personal favorite, Market Samurai (that’s an affiliate link – thank you for clicking, if you do!). If you or your clients’ website metrics stack up to the competition, then go for it.
The Google Adwords Keyword Tool is an excellent keyword research tool. While it doesn’t give you exact numbers (not that any tool can), it’ll provide you with a good idea of which keywords to use as well as which ones to avoid. It’s clean, simple, and reliable, and when combined with insights from an SEO competition analysis tool, it gets the job done efficiently and effectively.
To find out more about keyword research and how to select the right keywords for your business’ PPC or SEO campaign, contact us!
The software as a service (SaaS) field has been growing consistently for more than a decade. By the end of 2023, it’s projected to be a $195.21 billion industry.
Every year, we see a rollout of hundreds of new SaaS businesses (and innovative tools they offer). Many of those tools grow at insane rates, attracting thousands (or even millions) of users in their first few months of operation.
How do they do it?
Obviously, most SaaS businesses use a combination of marketing, advertising, and sales strategies to see those kinds of results. But one of the most promising channels is pay per click (PPC) advertising, primarily via Google.
How do you optimize a PPC campaign for a SaaS business effectively?
Before we can begin optimizing a PPC campaign for a SaaS business, we need to know what “optimization” truly entails.
Optimizing a PPC campaign simply means making it more effective, but how do we do that?
We’ll cover some of the specific tactics that can help us achieve this goal in the sections that follow, but ultimately, we are working in service of the following goals:
Target more valuable people. First, we want our advertising campaign to target more valuable people. If you target the most general possible audience, you could conceivably reach 8 billion people, but the vast majority of those people won’t be interested in using your products. It’s typically much more effective to target a smaller number of people, if those people are perfectly suited to your product. Reducing our focus on poor targets and increasing our focus on good targets should improve our overall results tremendously.
Before we get too deep into PPC optimization tactics, we need to establish a baseline.
Take a moment to consider:
Additionally, if you’ve practiced PPC advertising for this business already, gather up your existing data and perform an overall assessment. Have you been hitting your targets? In which areas does your campaign underperform or seem weak? Are there specific metrics that need to be improved?
One of the most reliable ways to improve your PPC ad campaign results in the SaaS industry is to better understand your target customers. With better market research and customer knowledge, you can target more appropriate keywords, improve your messaging strategy, and eventually make your efforts more cost efficient.
The higher your quality score is, the better. Without getting into the mechanics of this dynamic, higher quality scores are associated with higher ad rankings and lower costs.
One of the best ways to improve your quality score is to increase your clickthrough rate (CTR) for individual ads. Incidentally, these strategies tend to also be effective for making a better impression with new leads and prospects.
Start with these tactics:
Many new PPC advertisers make the mistake of thinking that optimization is a one-way street – a clear and specifically directed path to one destination. Once you get to that destination, you can run the perfect ad over and over again and continue to see great results.
Unfortunately, this is not the case.
If you want your PPC ad campaign to remain relevant, you need to consistently create new ads and rotate them in. No matter how effective your previous advertising has been, it’s going to decline in effectiveness if you keep spamming the same people with it repetitively.
Cycling in new advertisements is a way to keep your ads looking fresh, a way to reach new types of people, and a way to effectively experiment and learn about potential new tactics. Never let your PPC ad campaign sit untouched for too long.
If you want to improve your targeting further, consider using both negative keywords and audience exclusions. Both of these features are designed to reduce the likelihood of targeting irrelevant people.
When it comes to negative keywords, include any keywords that might interfere with your goal. For example, if you’re trying to advertise your paid software, you might include the word “free” as a negative keyword. After all, people searching for a free solution to their problem probably aren’t going to be willing to pay for yours.
Audience exclusions are very similar, but it might take some finesse to figure out which types of audience members are best to exclude.
In any marketing or advertising environment, it’s important to be aware of your top competitors, so that you can effectively plan for them and differentiate yourself from them. On the simplest level, this can help you craft more unique, compelling advertisements that differentiate your brand from the other SaaS companies on your level.
You can also use this information to target people more strategically. For example, you can target people in a different phase of the sales funnel. It’s common for SaaS businesses to target people at the bottom of the funnel, since they’re much more likely to make a purchase. But if most of your competitors are targeting these demographics, your costs are going to increase. While it might mean targeting less immediately valuable customers, you can save a lot of money and make your advertising more effective by targeting people at the higher levels of the sales funnel.
Some of your most valuable prospects are going to be people who are already familiar with your brand and interested in your product. That’s why it usually pays to increase your remarketing budget, even at the expense of the rest of your PPC advertising campaign.
If you want to make your remarketing ads even more effective, segment your audience and use your ad copy to persuade them specifically. This is your chance to alleviate fears, address potential concerns, and speak to previous behavior you’ve seen from these users.
As you get more experience in remarketing, you’ll be able to increase your conversion rates steadily.
Finally, make a commitment to experiment, measure your results, and keep improving. There’s no surefire formula for the perfect PPC advertisement, and even if there was, it would quickly be rendered obsolete by changing audience attitudes, new market dynamics like emerging competitors, or new targeting or exclusion options available to you.
To be successful as a SaaS PPC advertiser, you need to keep moving constantly. The more you learn, and the more you optimize, the better results you’ll see.
Are you trying to scale up your SaaS business with the help of PPC advertising?
Do you need help optimizing or improving the effectiveness of your existing PPC ad campaign?
PPC.co can help. From conception to execution, and from experiments to solidified tactics, we’ll help you form and follow the best possible PPC path for your business.
No matter how long you’ve been running your PPC ads, you can always increase conversions just a little bit more. Sometimes that will involve tweaking your copy, your images, and the placement of page elements, and other times that will involve adjusting your target audience.
When your goal is to increase your PPC conversions, you need to test various elements in your campaign. To start getting better results, here are 8 PPC landing page tests you can run.
Dynamic landing pages are essentially PPC landing pages that automatically change their content based on user input, like keywords, location, and more. This makes it easy to create a personalized experience for your visitors without having to create hundreds of PPC landing pages that perfectly match all possible combinations of your dynamic keywords.
When you start testing your PPC ad landing pages with dynamic landing pages, you’ll be able to tell which pages are converting better based on dynamic keywords being generated from your Google Ads. This will give you better insight into the efficacy of your ads and will help you learn more about your target market.
How many options do you give your visitors on your own landing pages? Do you have one product they can buy with a single click, or do your customers have to make a selection from a variety of options and variants?
At first glance, you might think giving your customers more options will generate more sales, but that’s not what the data says. In fact, if you’re not generating the sales you want, offering too many options could be what’s standing in the way.
You’ve likely heard of “analysis paralysis” – the inability to make a decision when you’re presented with an overload of information. This occurs when someone is afraid of making the wrong decision and foregoing the ideal solution. When it comes to generating sales, giving prospects too many choices can result in analysis paralysis, and will actually cause more people to walk away than buy from you.
This phenomenon was demonstrated in 2000 in what has been dubbed “The Jam Experiment.” In this experiment, shoppers at Draeger’s Supermarket were given the opportunity to sample different flavors of Wilkin & Sons jams during two different sampling sessions hosted on different days. During the first session, shoppers were given 24 flavors to choose from, and during the second session, they were given just 6 flavors to choose from. The display with 24 flavors attracted more attention but resulted in one-tenth fewer sales. In other words, more people bought jam when they had fewer choices.
If this is what happened with something as simple as jam, imagine how an abundance of choices could be impacting your ability to sell important, high-ticket products and services.
Have you ever wondered why the fast-food chain In-N-Out Burger does so well without selling franchises or going public? Sure, they have amazing service and their food is good, but you can say that about a lot of businesses. From a marketing perspective, In-N-Out derives their success from having a simple menu consisting of burgers, fries, and drinks. However, unlike other burger joints you’ll only find three burgers on the menu: a hamburger, a cheeseburger, and a double cheeseburger.
While it’s true that a short menu tends to lower the spend per sales ticket, it increases the speed of service, which increases customer satisfaction and generates loyalty. After all, many people admit to driving for hours just to visit a newly opened In-N-Out Burger. Some have even waited in line for twelve hours to buy their food.
The lesson here is that people don’t want too many choices, and you’ll generate more sales by limiting the number of choices you offer to boost your lead generation efforts.
Your call-to-action (CTA) is more important than you might realize. Not only does your CTA entice people to click, but it can also influence whether or not visitors follow through with filling out your web forms.
For example, Culligan, a company that sells water filtration devices, experimented with their CTA by testing two variations. The first said “Get a Quote” and the second said “Get Pricing.” While both of these phrases mean the same thing, the results demonstrated the importance of matching visitor expectations. The page that used “Get a Quote” as the CTA saw 104% more form submissions. Why?
It’s because “Get a Quote” implies that the visitor will be asked to fill out a form with their information so they can talk to a service rep and get a personalized quote. “Get Pricing” implies that by clicking, the user will be taken to a page listing all the prices for various services. When asked to fill out a form, many users who expected immediate pricing ended up bouncing.
Check your CTA copy and really think about what you’re telling the user with your choice of words. There is a reason some CTAs convert better than others, and it’s not always because the copy is more persuasive – sometimes it’s because certain CTAs create a disconnect between the user’s expectations and reality. Make sure your CTAs create an accurate picture of what users can expect after they click.
What’s going on in the world that people are going to know about? Incorporate some current events into your PPC search ads to capture attention and see if you can get conversions. If you can come up with a clever search ad that is related to current events, like sports matches or upcoming national holidays, you’ll probably win some people over just by being clever.
Experiment with ads that play off of local events, local culture, holidays, and more. If you don’t have any ideas, consult with a professional PPC marketing agency because creating Google Ads like this is exactly what they do for their clients.
Your PPC landing pages should be extremely simple and users should intuitively know how to navigate, read, and understand what you want them to do next. If you have any page elements that get in the way of this process, you’ll want to eliminate them no matter what. For example, you could have the most beautiful slider at the top of your page that showcases brilliant photos of your products, but sliders have been shown to create resistance for visitors and they are a hindrance to conversions.
The problem with sliders is easy to see. The images change faster than visitors can take in the information they’re trying to read. Even if your slider doesn’t change that quickly, people are so used to nuisance sliders that they’ll just automatically start scrolling down the page when they see a slider.
Other page elements that can be difficult include pop-ups that open in a new window (these are largely forbidden by PPC platforms), pop-ups that aren’t easy to close, and videos without controls that prevent the user from pausing the video.
Check in with your landing pages to see if you have any elements that might be distracting or annoying to visitors and if anything looks like it might be in the way of getting conversions, make a new page and remove the element and test them both to see which page converts better.
Pop-ups are okay to use on landing pages with PPC ads as long as they are overlays and not new windows/tabs. Whether you already have pop-ups, or you’re just about to add some to your landing pages, make sure you spend a significant amount of time creating your campaigns.
Pop-ups are worth continually refining until they are pixel-perfect in terms of landing page design and size. You’ll also want to work on simplifying the copy. For example, avoid having paragraphs worth of text on a pop-up – most people won’t read that much copy. Use a short, powerful headline with a subheading, but limit the copy to a few lines.
Concerning the information, you ask for in your pop-ups, consider asking only for a first name and email address. If having a subscriber’s last name will help you in the future, then ask for a last name. However, if you’re only going to communicate with people online through email, a first name is all you need, and you’ll get more signups by asking only for a first name. However, some marketers have found that they get even better results by not asking for a name at all, and only asking for an email address. If a name is needed, they can use progressive profiling to get it later.
Which method is right for you? The only way to know is to run some experiments to test all of your options. However, if you’re not going to use progressive profiling, be sure to ask for at least a first name so you can get the higher open rates from sending out emails with personalized subject lines.
Many years ago, long form sales pages dominated the internet because everything was so new. Some speculate that long content made the business look more like an authority, especially when the content was full of good information. However, that was a time when people were primarily viewing websites from desktop computers. Today, most people are on mobile devices when viewing web pages, and long content is hard to read on mobile devices.
Sometimes long form sales pages are effective today, but not always. The only way to know how your content will perform in long vs. short forms is by testing it out yourself. However, remember that the key to generating conversions by shortening your content is to put your signup form or buy button front-and-center for your visitors. Go with a minimalist design to eliminate visual clutter and focus visitor attention on your signup form.
You can create landing pages that have a condensed version of your content on top with the extended version down below. Experiment with all of these options to see what works best for you.
If your product or service is used by people in different industries, then you need landing pages designed specifically to reach those individual markets. For example, you might run the same PPC ad for a variety of audiences, and that can work. However, you need individual, customized landing pages for each of your target audiences.
Elements to customize on each landing page include:
According to Unbounce, the highest converting landing pages have several key elements: compelling headings, a single and focused CTA, a clear value proposition, clear features and benefits, and testimonials or social proof. These elements should be present on all of your landing pages, but the content should change based on the target audience. You can also use a landing page builder to quickly create multiple pages for A/B testing purposes and multiple PPC landing page examples.
These are just a few ideas for what elements you can test to increase your PPC ad conversions in various search engines. As long as your conversion rates are below 100%, there is room for improvement. Never stop testing your Google Ads and landing pages; there’s always something you can adjust to squeeze out some more conversions.
Do you manage your PPC ads in Microsoft Excel? If so, you have an advantage. Excel is a powerful way to manage your ads, provided you know how to get the most out of your application. The more organized you are, the easier it is to accurately calculate your PPC ROI.
Managing Google PPC ads requires numerous and large calculations, all of which are easily handled by Excel. The process of learning advanced Excel tips can be time-consuming, but here are some ways to streamline your efforts and maximize ease of use.
However, you set up your spreadsheet to make calculations, it’s helpful to set your cell reference to display as currency rather than a plain text number. Sure, you can look at “8.00” and know it means “$8,” but it’s easier just to have that formula cell display the number in dollars.
Ideally, you’ll set your cells to display currency before you enter your raw data in the respective data tab. However, there will be times when you’ll need to change existing cells into currency and that’s where keyboard shortcuts come in handy.
You can use your mouse to navigate Excel’s menu and change cells to currency, but that’s a tedious process. It’s easier to use the ctrl+shift+4 shortcut. Just highlight the cell(s) you want to display in currency, and then use this shortcut.
Another useful keyboard shortcut is one that turns the contents of cells into a percentage. This shortcut is ctrl+shift+5. This is useful when you want to look at certain numbers as a percentage rather than a whole number, but you don’t want those numbers displayed as a percentage permanently.
Sometimes you’ll need to calculate the sums of many individual rows or columns, and if you only have to do this once, it’s not a big deal to manually enter the Excel formulas. However, when you need to perform this type of calculation multiple times, it will become cumbersome.
You can automatically calculate the sum of a row or column by clicking in an empty cell and using the shortcut alt+the equal sign. If you’re on a Mac, you’ll need to use command+alt/option+the equal sign.
VLOOKUP is one of the most important, yet underused functions in Excel. This function allows you to reference data from other spreadsheets and incorporate that into your calculations. This means you don’t have to cram all of your data for every ad campaign (and corresponding ad copy) you run into one spreadsheet file just to be able to perform calculations.
Using this function does require setting the foundation, but once you set it up, your calculations between files will be smooth. To learn more about how this function works and to learn how to set it up, watch this tutorial video.
“Concatenate” means to combine or join together and is one of the best functions Excel provides for managing your PPC ads. With this function, you can combine the contents of multiple cells into one cell. You can also use it to add words or symbols to the end of multiple existing cells. For managing PPC ads, this function will speed up your work. Here are some examples.
When creating broad match modified keywords, you need to add a plus symbol to the beginning of your keyword. This isn’t easy to do manually, even when you use the copy and paste functions. The concatenate function makes this a breeze.
Just add the following function to an adjacent cell:
=CONCATENATE(“+”, B2)
For all cells below B2 (or whatever cell you’re starting with), use the fill handle to copy the formula to all the other cells.
When you’re building a list of keyword variations, you’ll benefit by using concatenate. For example, say your company sells socks for men, women, and kids. You’re going to come up with keyword variations that are the same for all three of these categories. To create your list quickly, start by typing your main keywords vertically in a column like this:
Mens
Womens
Childrens
Now, say you have the following variations: wool socks, cotton socks, hiking socks, work socks. You can use the concatenate function to add “wool socks” to each of your main categories, and then continue doing the same with the other types of socks you sell.
If you want to get even more advanced you can perform filter and search functions in Excel using pivot tables.
It won’t take long before your PPC ad data fills up your Excel spreadsheet and requires scrolling down the page. There’s nothing wrong with this, except for the fact that you will lose sight of your column headings. If you work with your spreadsheet regularly, you’ll probably have the headings memorized, but memory isn’t always reliable. You don’t want to look at your data one day and mistake your CTR column for your conversion rate. Additionally, if you ever need someone else to work with your data, they could get frustrated.
The solution is to freeze the rows at the top of your sheets. When a row is frozen, it will remain at the top of the sheet as you scroll down, so you’ll always have a proper reference for what you’re looking at no matter how far down you scroll.
To freeze multiple rows, highlight the row directly below the last row you want frozen. Then go to the “View” option in the main menu and select “Freeze Panes.” Choose the option “freeze pane” and every row above the one you selected will be frozen.
To freeze only your top row, you can just go to the “View” option in the main menu, select “Freeze Panes,” and choose the option “freeze top row.” Alternatively, you can use the shortcut alt+W+F+R to freeze the top row.
If you want to freeze the first column, go to the “View” option in the main menu, select “Freeze Panes,” and choose the option “freeze top column.”
When you need to count the characters in your longtail keywords, Len comes in handy. For instance, when you have exact matches longer than three words you can program it to add that to your modified broad match keywords. Len is best used in conjunction with concatenate to fill in the modifiers.
Sometimes you’ll need to apply formulas to additional cells, but doing this manually takes a long time. The trick here is to place the formula in your first cell so that it performs the first calculation, and then hover your mouse over the cell. You’ll see a plus sign appear in the bottom right corner, and when you double click on that plus sign, it will automatically calculate the remainder of cells.
Find and replace is one of the oldest life-saving functions around. It helps if you’ve accidentally clichéd and pasted something incorrectly, but it also helps you change words when you just need to make a change.
When you only have a couple of instances of a word, it’s not a big deal to change them manually. However, when you have ten or more, including hundreds or even thousands of instances, using the find and replace function will make your life easier. For instance, you might decide you want to turn all of your broad match keywords into a modified broad keyword. Use find and replace to add that plus sign in front of each instance of your keywords.
When you’re managing mass amounts of PPC data, you need a tool that will perform automatic calculations and make it easy for you to play with your data to crunch numbers in different ways. Excel is an excellent tool for the job, provided you take advantage of some of these PPC Excel tips, shortcuts and functions.
There’s not much you can do about the changing seasons.
As the months progress, the weather changes. Holidays come and go. And if your business is seasonal, even in a small or indirect way, there will be times when your marketing and advertising efforts simply don’t work as well as they would in other seasons.
Maybe you’re an HVAC company that sees significantly lower demand in fall and spring, when compared to spring and summer. Or maybe you sell pools, along with related equipment and accessories, and winter is practically a dead time for you.
Whatever the case, you’re not going to see as much value during your slow times.
So how do you beat these PPC campaign seasonality issues?
Some seasonal patterns in business are totally intuitive and predictable. If you sell Christmas decorations or specialize in winter holiday apparel, you’re going to see sales spike in November and December – without much activity the rest of the year. If you own a landscaping business in an area with cold winter weather, you shouldn’t expect much activity until spring.
But some seasonal fluctuations are less predictable – and harder to understand.
Many businesses see significant and consistent drops in conversions, sales, and other KPIs at around the same time every year – despite little to no logical reasoning to support the trend. For example, you might notice plummeting sales at the beginning of February, with restoration to normalcy around mid-March, every year of operations.
How do you begin to identify and understand these patterns?
The simplest analytics tool is to study a year-over-year chart (and preferably, several that cover different variables). Look at as many years as possible and watch for observable trends. Is there a month or series of months when you see a boom in sales? Or especially low sales? Take a look at not only sales and revenue, but conversions, ad traffic, organic traffic, and other factors.
At this point, you should be able to identify your biggest seasonal issues.
It could be valuable to analyze the root causes for these seasonal disruptions, but that’s not always the case; sometimes, it’s enough to simply know that a trend exists. The good news here is that as long as you’re willing to experiment and continuously make progress, you should eventually close the gap between your best and worst seasons.
Here’s some additional good news; whatever seasonal issues you face are probably also affecting your top competitors. That means they’re struggling with the same things you are. It also means you have a critical opportunity to surpass their performance.
Part of your seasonal optimization strategy should be pushing your campaign to do its best during your peak busy season. When do sales usually spike? And how can you make sales increase even further?
The most straightforward answer here is to increase your spending. Assuming you can keep all other variables consistent, including the relevance of your audience, the quality of your landing pages, your conversion rates, etc., a bigger budget should lead to much better results.
If you face significant competition during the busy season, this may not be a viable option for you, as ad spending can become cripplingly exorbitant when there are too many people competing for the same group of keywords. Here, if you don’t have the budget to compete, your best strategy is some form of avoidance. That could mean targeting a different demographic, targeting people at a different stage of the sales funnel, or even offering a different selection of products and services so you’re not trapped in a pit with a bigger, more threatening competitor.
The bigger issue for most brands is finding a way to make up for seasonal slowdown.
Just as “everyone is a genius in a bull market,” every advertiser is brilliant during the busy season. It’s the slow season that’s a much bigger problem.
Many advertisers confront this problem by simply reducing their budget or minimizing their marketing efforts during this slow season. Intuitively, this makes some sense; if you’re not seeing adequately profitable results from your efforts, there’s no reason to spend as much as you did before.
However, you can get an edge over your competitors and create more value for your brand by adjusting your PPC advertising strategy specifically for the slow season.
These are the strategies that can help you:
Micro conversions aren’t as valuable as full conversions, but they’re much easier to get and they’re less expensive to manage. During your off season, micro conversions are a potentially lucrative way to keep your campaign running – and the real bonus comes weeks or months later, when you’re carefully nurtured early-sales-funnel micro converts eventually decide to purchase from you.
If you want to increase the effectiveness of your display ads, or make the most of a limited budget, it’s a good idea to take advantage of multiple networks simultaneously. Not only will you broaden your reach, you’ll also be able to take advantage of the most cost-effective advertising opportunities available. Microsoft and other secondary networks may not have the notoriety of Google, but they also have less competition and, in many cases, lower prices.
Are you looking for more advice on how to properly address seasonality issues in your PPC campaign?
Or are you ready to increase your budget for this powerful advertising strategy?
PPC.co can help you with everything from initial strategy to ongoing experimentation and optimization. Contact us for your free proposal today!
For obvious reasons, we love to promote the power and value of pay per click (PPC) advertising.
No matter your industry, the size of your business, or the goals of your advertising strategy, a PPC campaign can give you the reach and reliable lead generation you need to gain momentum.
But investing exclusively in one PPC channel is inefficient.
And so is investing exclusively in PPC as a lead generation strategy.
The solution is cross channel lead generation.
But what exactly is cross channel lead generation? And how should it apply to your PPC advertising lead generation strategy?
The term “cross channel” refers to coordinating efforts across multiple different mediums or platforms, and it can apply both within the world of PPC advertising and outside of it.
Within PPC advertising, you can use cross channel lead generation to display your ads across multiple different platforms and networks, such as Google, Bing, Facebook, and LinkedIn. You can manage several different PPC ad campaigns interdependently, taking advantage of a wide range of tools and techniques to get the greatest value from each ad you place.
Outside of PPC, cross channel lead generation includes a variety of both inbound and outbound lead generation strategies. For example, in addition to your cross channel PPC ads, you can practice cold calling, cold emailing, SEO, and drip email marketing.
We’ll be exploring both sides of this equation but will primarily focus on cross channel lead generation within the PPC realm.
Why should you consider cross channel lead generation?
Now let’s dig into the details of how you can practice cross channel lead generation with PPC advertising.
Your first step is to decide on which complementary channels to include. You’ll need to do some research upfront here, studying your target demographics as well as your competitors to figure out which channels might be the most promising.
That said, try not to overthink this. None of these channels require an extensive commitment, and you’ll be reshuffling your budget in the future anyway. If a channel doesn’t work, you can always cut it in the future.
Next, if you haven’t already, define your sales funnel and sales cycle.
Your sales cycle applies to individual leads in your pipeline; it’s a description of the process the average lead follows to eventually become a paying customer (or buy a new product from your business). It might go something like Prospecting > Initial Connection > Presentation > Overcoming Objections > Close.
Your sales funnel is somewhat similar, describing the average path your customers follow on their journey to become customers, but it has a higher-level, more aggregated view. A sales funnel might unfold in phases like Awareness > Research > Consideration/Comparison > Decision.
It’s important to understand both of these so you can better contextualize the behavior of your users and better allocate your budget. With proper planning, you can design and display advertisements for different types of prospects, based on where they are in the sales funnel.
We’ll take a closer look at these strategic decisions in the next section, but for now, focus on defining what the phases of your sales cycle and sales funnel are. These conceptual tools look a bit different for every business, so consider making modifications to any templates you find.
Strongly differentiate between your “high funnel” and “low funnel” promotions – and use your advertising networks accordingly.
A high funnel promotion is designed to appeal to users higher up in your sales funnel; these are people who probably aren’t aware that your brand exists and they may not even know they have a problem that needs to be solved. Messages like “Are you spending too much on HR needs?” and promotions of educational content are excellent here; the goal is to raise awareness, stimulate interest, and begin nurturing your leads.
A low funnel promotion is designed to users lower in your sales funnel; these are people who already know your brand and are getting ready to make a purchase. Special offers, discounts, and other incentives to close the deal are ideal here.
There are, of course, other stages in the middle of your sales funnel, too. But high funnel and low funnel promotions are a great place to start.
Next, distinguish between platforms and advertisements meant to push your audience toward something they haven’t heard of before and those meant to pull your audience towards something they’re already familiar with.
If a customer has never heard of your brand before, they have no reason to search for it. They may also be totally unaware of whatever problem you’re trying to solve. If you want to get their attention in your cross-channel lead generation strategy, you’ll need to reach out to them in some generic, mass marketed way. This is considered a push promotion.
If a customer is already acutely aware of the problem they need to solve, and they’ve done at least some research to make a purchasing decision, you’ll need to reach out to them when they’re actively searching for your brand or a solution like yours. This is considered a pull promotion.
Now let’s combine these ideas.
For customers high in your sales funnel, push promotions are best. You’ll begin introducing your brand, you’ll reach people who may not have heard of you, and you can begin warming up these potential leads. Social media networks are typically good for this, as long as you know who you’re targeting.
For customers low in your sales funnel, pull promotions are best. You’ll capitalize on search intent, placing your advertisements for keywords and phrases that indicate purchasing intent or at least serious research on the subject.
It’s a great strategy for using each platform/channel to its fullest potential – and it’s only going to get better once you have more data available to you.
As you begin experimenting with different channels and approaches, attempt to estimate your “baseline” costs per lead. In other words, how much would you pay for each quality lead generated by a given strategy?
If you’ve been practicing PPC advertising on a single channel for some time, you probably have a reasonable basis for this projection. How much does it cost, approximately, to generate a lead under normal circumstances?
This is going to serve as your comparative foundation when planning for lead generation across other channels. If it costs $5 to generate a typical lead on your primary platform, but it only costs $1 to generate a high funnel lead on a competing platform, you know this secondary channel/strategy is worth pursuing. If it costs $10, you know not to bother.
Your measurements don’t need to be precise at the beginning of your campaign; this cost basis is meant to loosely guide you in your early decision making. Objective analytics and precision come later, once you’ve had a chance to run more experiments and gather more data.
Across all your channels and platforms, you need to commit to measuring every significant variable. Most PPC ad platforms (and most lead generation strategies in general) make these tools free and easy to use – you just have to go through the effort of using them.
These are some of the most important KPIs to measure across your campaigns:
As you gather more data, you’ll get a better sense for the strengths and weaknesses of each platform, the power of your spending, and the behavioral patterns of your most important demographics. And with this information, you can reallocate your budget to maximize your ROI.
Are you ready to start a cross-channel PPC campaign of your own?
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We have seasoned experts who can help you from start to finish. Contact us for a free proposal today!
What is the gold standard key performance indicator (KPI) for most of your marketing and advertising campaigns?
You can measure traffic. You can analyze user behavior. You can track spending. And all of these variables are important.
But if you’re like most marketers, your attention is disproportionately fixated on conversions.
There’s some good reason for this; unlike these other variables, conversions are tied to actual value. When a user is converted, it means your company is either generating revenue or that it’s taken a meaningful step toward generating revenue.
But in the realm of pay per click (PPC) advertising, conversions aren’t everything. In addition to standard conversions, you should be tracking, measuring, and carefully considering “micro conversions.”
So, what exactly are micro conversions for PPC lead generation? And how do you use them effectively?
Let’s start by exploring why conventional conversions aren’t everything.
Imagine a conventional user behavior path. A user sees your ad, they click on it, they visit your landing page, and eventually, they convert. In a mainstream context, conversions usually refer to meaningful, revenue-generating actions like purchasing a product, signing up for a service, or filling out a form For more information.
It’s easy to see why this is meaningful to track. The higher your conversion rate is, the more valuable your landing page is; high conversion rates can support higher advertising spending and further growth free or business, while lower conversion rates can guide you to further optimizations.
But let’s imagine a less immediately understandable, but still impactful user behavior path.
A user sees your ad, they click on it, and they visit your landing page, just like in our earlier example. But they’re not truly convinced they need your product, and even if they were, they’ve never heard of your brand before. Instead of converting, they leave.
A few days later, they face a specific problem that your product is potentially capable of solving. They conduct a search for your business, remembering your brand name, and they read a bit more about your business and your core products, gathering more information as part of their due diligence. They’re still not convinced, but they’re thinking about your product seriously.
A week after that, this user revisits your website directly and eventually buys your product.
Here, we finally have a meaningful conversion, but if we only track this process conventionally, we will attribute this conversion only to a direct traffic visit. In reality, the conversion is at the end of a long chain of events – and this long chain of events started with a “micro conversion.”
What is a micro conversion in the world of PPC advertising?
This definition is somewhat subjective, but a micro conversion is typically considered any meaningful action taken by a user that wouldn’t count as a normal, full conversion – but could still result in desired behavior from that user in the near future.
It’s easiest to understand this through example. Here are some common examples of micro conversions that most brands experience.
Obviously, securing a micro conversion isn’t a guarantee that you’re going to secure a full conversion in the future. Accordingly, we can’t consider micro conversions to be as valuable or as meaningful as traditional conversions.
However, if we better understand and analyze micro conversions in the proper context, we can optimize our campaigns to win more of them and incorporate them into our other calculations more accurately.
For example, let’s say that we discover, through analysis, that a micro conversion results in a purchase approximately 35 percent of the time. If the average value of a conversion is $1,000, we can assume the average value of a micro conversion is $350.
With this information, we can optimize our ads, landing pages, and other materials to maximize micro conversions similarly to how we would maximize traditional conversions. If we can get a sufficiently high percentage of our visitors to micro convert, in addition to fully converting, our campaigns can become much more valuable.
So, how do you measure and analyze micro conversions in the context of your PPC campaign?
Here’s some good news. You can set up and track micro conversions in your Google Ads campaign the same way you would set up and track regular conversions. You’ll just have to create new metrics for each micro conversion you want to track.
If you want the micro conversion to apply to all of your campaigns, treat it as a primary conversion action. If you want the micro conversion to only apply to selected campaigns, create it as a secondary action.
From that point, you can group all your micro conversions together so they’re all tracked in the same column in your reports, or you can look at each individual goal specifically. One unfortunate downside of incorporating micro conversions into your campaign is that they could disrupt your ability to track and compare historical data; you won’t be able to make an apples-to-apples comparison if you start defining your conversions in a different way.
What steps can you take to improve your PPC lead generation with micro conversions?
These are some of the most important strategies:
The true value of tracking and analyzing your micro conversions is feeding you information that you can use to make your campaign more valuable over time. If you better understand the user behavior of “micro converted” users, you can make your landing page significantly more valuable.
Depending on your business, your niche, and your goals, that could mean creating separate landing pages for different target audiences, complete with different keyword groups, and with different goals; one could focus almost exclusively on full conversions, while the other focuses on micro conversions and audiences who aren’t ready to fully convert. It could also mean optimizing individual landing pages to offer conversion opportunities to all demographic groups simultaneously, though this is admittedly trickier to pull off.
It’s going to take time for you to understand the full context of each micro conversion you analyze. There’s almost no way to tell exactly how valuable a micro conversion is until you’ve spent a few weeks gathering data on converted users. But once you have this information, you’ll be in a much better position to optimize your landing pages effectively.
With this information, you can optimize your ads, your landing pages, and your other materials for appropriate users. You can create entire campaigns of ads for people in the earliest research phases of their decision-making process and create landing pages that are optimized to maximize micro conversions – and tweak those micro conversions to maximize their likelihood of leading to a full conversion.
Spend a few weeks gathering data on users early in your sales funnel and those willing to engage with your brand on a temporary or limited basis. You can do this while simultaneously pursuing your traditional conversion optimization goals. Once you gather enough information, you can start making more meaningful tweaks to your campaign.
If you swap out a piece of premium content with another, does that increase or decrease your micro conversion rate? What effect does it have on eventual conversions? What happens if you split your landing page into two different versions with two different goals? Does this landing page work better for a different keyword or group?
While not as financially impactful or behaviorally meaningful as traditional conversions, micro conversions are an important consideration for your Google PPC ad campaigns – and they’re definitely worth tracking and optimizing for.
After a few adjustments in the back end of your PPC campaign, you’ll be able to get more transparency into the subtler, yet measurably valuable little interactions taken by your users. And with that data, you can make your campaigns more effective in countless different ways.
Of course, tracking KPIs and optimizing PPC campaigns is a lot of work, especially if you don’t have much direct experience with managing PPC ads in the past. That’s why agencies like PPC.co – exist; we’re here to make things easier for you. Contact us for a free consultation today!
When you visit a website for the first time, you usually see a message like this:
“This website uses cookies on your computer to collect information about…”,
followed by a paragraph of jargony explanatory text and a link to a privacy policy. At the end, you’ll have the option of accepting or rejecting cookies.
To the average user, cookies are an inconsequential annoyance – some dumb little thing they have to click whenever visiting a new website.
But for marketers and advertisers, cookies are a very important source of information. Now, the potential death of third party cookies has caused some ripples in the industry.
So why are third party cookies on the chopping block? And what can you do as a marketer to prepare for this massive sea change?
In case you’re uninitiated, let’s go over the fundamentals. What exactly is a cookie?
Yes, we’ve all heard the jokes about the popular dessert, so don’t bother. In the context of digital interactions, a cookie is a type of data file that stores a tiny amount of information about a user. Collectively, cookies can tell you much about how a user interacts with a website – and sometimes, information about the users themselves.
Third party cookies are only one of three main types of cookie.
We have:
As PPC advertising experts, we usually consider cookies in the context of collecting user information we can then use for marketing purposes – but there are many other applications for cookies. For example, cookies are responsible for allowing you to use financial apps like PayPal on external sites. Cookies can also be used by cybercriminals and opportunists looking to exploit you or steal your identity – though these tend to be rare.
We’ve established that third party cookies are important for gathering information on users, which can then be used to optimize powerful marketing and advertising campaigns. We’ve also alluded to the deprecation, or death, of third party cookies.
Why are we predicting this?
We can already see some signs of a collective shift in how we view online privacy and third party data sharing. Web browsers like Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari already block third party cookies by default; if users like the idea of sharing their data with advertisers, they can enable them (though this isn’t a frequent choice).
Google Chrome, as of the time of this article’s writing, still enables third party cookies by default, but this is set to change later in 2023. And with this change will come another important feature, or rather, a missing feature: users will not be able to turn on third party cookies. Once third party cookies disappear from Google Chrome, they’re never coming back – and it’s likely that all the other little web browsers will follow suit.
That’s on top of increasing online privacy concerns putting pressure on cookie-related strategies. Consumers are increasingly concerned about online privacy, regulatory organizations and governments around the world are introducing new data regulations, and brands all over the world are exercising more prudence and caution when collecting or using user data.
What does this mean for marketers?
Before we can fully answer that question, we need to talk about cookie matching. According to Google, “Cookie Matching is a feature that enables you to match your cookie—for example, an ID for a user that browsed your website—with a corresponding bidder-specific Google User ID, and construct user lists that can help you make more effective bidding choices.”
By some estimates, third party cookies match rates account for roughly 40 to 60 percent of the total user profile – meaning about half your user data depends on third party cookies. If users are actively blocking third party cookies, or if you don’t have any third party cookie data to draw from, you’re going to end up with half the user data you’d have otherwise.
This can have cascading consequences, ultimately costing you more money and reducing the potential effectiveness of your marketing and advertising campaign. If you can’t target users accurately, your click and conversion rates will go down. You’ll have a harder time finding the right people to target. And according to some experts, this could end up driving up the average cost of advertising.
On top of that, your data analytics will no longer be reliable. You’ll find it much harder to accurately measure the results of your campaign – and you might end up forming misleading conclusions that make you optimize your campaign in the wrong direction.
Keep in mind that this shift is already unfolding. As of late 2022, 26 percent of people around the world have third party cookies disabled in their browser of choice.
So, what can you do to prepare for this major shift in user data and advertising?
If there’s one important take away from all of this, it’s that the worlds of PPC advertising, consumer data collection, and even online privacy are going to change forever by the end of the year – and the transition has already begun. As is the case with all major marketing and advertising transitions, the companies that are capable of adapting and evolving are the ones that are going to thrive.
You only have two options, since you’re not going to convince Google Chrome to give third party cookies another shot. You can either adapt or you can suffer the consequences of remaining stagnant. It’s hard to say exactly what the short-term or long-term effects of missing third party cookies will be, but we can be confident that we’re in store for the biggest PPC ad disruption we’ve seen in years.
Whatever your goals and motivations are, it’s on you to take a close, analytical look at your PPC advertising strategy, increase your focus on first party tracking, and allow your advertising approach to evolve.
All this is much easier when you have the help of a competent, experienced PPC advertising agency (like ours!). If you’re ready for a free proposal, or if you’d like some more information before getting started – contact us today!
When your goal is a long-term, successful PPC campaign that brings you a steady stream of qualified leads, you need to run A/B continuously.
Also known as split testing in digital marketing, this is the only reliable way to determine which variables contribute to higher conversions and profits.
Once you pinpoint the profitable ad variations, you can implement them across all of your campaigns for the best results.
In general, the idea is to run two or more simultaneous Google Ads campaigns that differ in small ways, both in your ad and your landing pages. You start with a main campaign as your control, and then create additional ads and landing pages with slight differences to see how well they perform against each other.
After a period of time, you’ll know which ads and landing pages perform the best. From there, you can analyze which variables are present on your high-performing ads and pages, apply them to all of your campaigns, and then start testing other elements to get even better results.
For example, you might run five campaigns with the same ad, but users are redirected to five different landing pages, each with a unique heading. Or, your landing pages might have a different format, colors, or typography. You can test any element, no matter how small, and sometimes it’s the small things that count most.
If you’re curious about split testing your PPC ads, this article will help you understand how this process works and how to apply it in your campaigns.
You can run an A/B test for just about any element you can alter in your Google Ads campaign. For example, it’s common for people to test the following:
There are two main elements that power A/B testing: time and structure. Let’s look at each of these in-depth.
Running digital marketing A/B tests is easy, but you need to set it up to extract actionable insights, and that’s where things can get a little challenging. If you follow these tips, you’ll have an easier time.
Your control campaign is the original, unaltered version. Always keep your control running alongside additional campaigns with changes. After your tests, when you find your highest performing campaign, that should become your new control to replace the old. From there, you’ll aim to beat your control once more by testing new elements.
Repeat this process indefinitely, and always remember to maintain your control so you can see what elements are performing better against your existing standard.
The first thing to remember is not to attempt to test too many variables at once. Testing multiple things at once will make it hard to know which change is responsible for an increase or decrease in conversions. Stick to testing a single variable until you’re satisfied with those results and then start testing the next element.
When running a test, you’ll need ample time to generate enough traffic, clicks, and sales to see what’s working between each version being tested. You won’t get results overnight or even in a week. Your A/B tests need to run long enough to create statistical significance in the results.
The suggested time period is however long it takes to reach 10,000 sessions, also known as the “10,000 experiments rule.” This is an alternative version of the concept that it takes 10,000 hours to become proficient in a given skill. The idea behind this is that deliberate experimentation is more valuable than deliberate practice. It’s true – if you don’t experiment deliberately, you won’t get the data you need to see what’s working in your PPC campaigns. However, 10,000 experiments (or 10,000 interactions) can seem like a bit much for smaller businesses.
Reaching this goal could take months for many organizations that don’t have a massive PPC budget. However, if this applies to you, set a goal to reach 1,000 sessions or put a cap on your tests at the 60-day mark. Either way, just wait until you have a decent amount of data to work with even if you don’t reach that 10,000 mark.
Running split tests without specified goals isn’t going to help you. It’s crucial to know exactly what you want to get out of your tests. For example, everyone wants more leads, but what does that look like beyond the surface? Would you feel like you achieved your goal if you got 500 new leads that never make a purchase? Or do you only consider it a success if you generate targeted leads that at least have the potential to buy in the future?
Getting targeted leads is just one example of a specific goal. You may want leads who will sign up for your email list and then watch a video or follow you on Instagram. For long-term success, you’ll want to align your A/B tests with your goals, otherwise you could spend years testing the wrong elements – the ones that don’t directly influence the actions you’re trying to elicit.
To get actionable insight from your tests, you’ll want to identify the metrics that denote success or failure other than just the number of leads you collect. These might include:
To make improvements, you have to know how your experiments are performing.
Figuring out if your tests are successful requires some serious data analytics. You’ll need to analyze a handful of metrics to see how people are reacting to the changes you’ve made and you can accomplish this with a visual form of behavioral analytics. According to Investopedia, behavioral analytics can support a number of different hypotheses at once, and makes it easier to evaluate your experiments.
When you have a visual data report of your tests, it’s easier to understand which elements are supporting your goals and if a certain version is good enough to apply to all of your campaigns and/or become your new control.
Also called session replays, this is where a user’s actions are recorded as they interact with your website. Mouse movements, clicks and taps, and scrolling are the most common actions recorded.
Implementing session recordings into your split tests can help you improve your PPC ad campaigns immensely. Not only will you have data, but you’ll have a real-time account of how users interacted with your page, which will give you some specifics you can’t get any other way. For instance, a user might start to fill out a contact form and then stop at a certain question. Or, they might abandon the checkout process at a certain stage and their mouse clicks might tell you why.
Session replays are an excellent way to improve your conversion rate, and when paired with A/B testing, they’re even more powerful.
Heatmaps can provide you with valuable insight into which parts of your web pages are performing well (or not). These maps will show you where your visitors are focusing most of their attention, where they’re clicking, if and how long they’re scrolling, and what might be distracting them from taking the desired action.
For example, a scrolling heatmap can tell you if users even saw your CTA. Perhaps many don’t scroll down far enough, and you’ll need to move the CTA higher up on the page. If you don’t use a heatmap, you won’t know that many of your visitors never even saw your CTA. All you’ll know is that you didn’t get clicks. This could lead in circles, causing you to test different CTAs, when your original one might be just fine when made more visible.
Sometimes, it’s your traffic source that supports a more successful Google Ads PPC campaign. Make sure you’re tracking where your visitors come from so you can determine which traffic sources lead to higher conversion rates. You might find some sources to be complete duds, and that means you’re either targeting the wrong audience within that PPC platform or the platform itself isn’t where your market spends time.
Many businesses run PPC ads on every platform they can find, like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Ads. However, some markets rarely (or never) spend time on certain platforms. For example, if you’re trying to reach a highly technical and scientific-minded market, you probably won’t reach many people on Instagram. Sure, there are plenty of science-related accounts, but they’re not usually scholarly. It just doesn’t attract that type of market. Instagram is more for entertainment and visual appeal than sharing scientific research, discoveries, and theories.
If you discover that some of your traffic sources aren’t producing conversions, reconsider if you’re on the right platform. If you think you are, then start adjusting your target audience. If that doesn’t generate more leads, consider abandoning the platform because it’s not worth wasting ad spend where you aren’t getting results.
A/B testing is a crucial component in your Google Ads PPC lead generating campaign. The key is to define your paid search goals before setting up your experiments, and only test one change at a time.
Be willing to wait for statistically significant results so that you can know for sure that you’re making the right changes. Keep your control clean and consistent but replace it when you find a new ad or landing page that consistently achieves a higher conversion rate.
Last, don’t stop split testing when you get your first taste of success because there’s always room for improvement and you can always do better. You’ll need to adjust your goals and hypotheses over time, but that’s just part of the process. Split testing should be a continuous endeavor and if you get stuck, you can always reach out to a professional PPC marketing company.
Getting big results from your PPC ads requires more marketing knowledge than the average person. Anyone can run ads and get clicks, but few achieve an exceptional conversion rate of >12%.
How do you rise above the average conversion rate of 2.35%? You need higher knowledge and a stronger strategy. However, you need to learn the ins and outs of each ad platform to supplement your general PPC knowledge.
Whether you’re running PPC ads for your own businesses or for clients, building your skill set for specific platforms will greatly improve your results. Even though all paid ads generally work the same way, each marketing channel is slightly different in terms of strategy, how you target your audience, and the market you can reach. For optimal results, you need to know where platforms share similarities, how they differ, and how to leverage each one.
Certifications will also prove your expertise to clients, look great in your portfolio, and will help you build confidence in your online advertising abilities.
If you’re new to PPC ads, you’re not hitting a conversion rate of at least 10%, or you need tangible evidence of your expertise, consider obtaining the following PPC certifications.
Most businesses that run paid ads rely on Google Ads certifications specifically for the majority of their leads. Google is the top search engine and has about 92% of the entire search market, which makes advertising on this platform essential.
Here’s an overview of the 8 PPC certifications you can get from Google, all of which are at the beginner level and include a series of assessments to prepare you for the exam.
This course takes about 4.7 hours to complete and will train you to “measure and optimizing Google search campaigns performance.” You’ll learn how to translate marketing objectives into measurable actions and derive actionable insights from data.
This course can be completed in around 3.9 hours and will teach you how to use Google’s tools to create “effective ads for Video, Display, App, and Search campaigns.” You’ll also learn how to boost performance by experimenting with ads.
After 2.6 hours of study, this course will teach you how to “connect products and services with shoppers across their purchase journey.” Running an offline sales strategy is just as important as your PPC ads, and you’ll learn all about how they are connected.
With an average completion time of 3.7 hours, this course will help you master “building and optimizing Google Ads Search campaigns.” This is one of the most important courses, and you’ll learn to boost performance with automated processes like Bidding and Audience Solutions.
This course can be completed in around 2.6 hours and will teach you to “deliver effective display advertising to meet specific marketing objectives.” Using Display Audiences, you’ll learn how to reach more customers and align your Display Ads marketing plan with your budget.
Shopping Ads Certification
This course takes about 3.1 hours to complete and you’ll learn how to “connect products and services with shoppers across their purchase journey.” Although the objective is similar to the Grow Offline Sales Certification, this course specifically pertains to Google’s Shopping ads.
With around 4 hours of study, you’ll learn how to “get results from YouTube and Google Video advertising solutions.” These two platforms are essential for paid ads, especially when you’re working with clients. YouTube Ads are an essential component of any PPC campaign. Running ads on videos requires a slightly different approach, and this course will teach you how to navigate this aspect of PPC advertising.
This is one of Google’s shorter PPC certification courses and takes around 2.8 hours to complete. This course will teach you to “create and optimize App campaigns to meet specific marketing objectives.” You’ll learn advanced strategies to elevate your App campaign performance and increase app quality an discoverability.
When you take the above courses, you’ll get video lessons, a knowledge assessment, and preparation assessments to help you pass. The exams generally take just over an hour to complete, and it’s recommended to get certified in every area to get the best results in PPC advertising.
All of these certifications are free, and you only need a Google account to get started.
You can never go wrong with Semrush. Considered a leader in digital marketing, Semrush offers high-quality, valuable resources to digital marketers, and the PPC Fundamentals certification is no exception.
If you’re just getting started with PPC and are a complete beginner, you want to start with this certification. You’ll be asked 35 multiple choice questions spanning a total of eight topics:
To pass this exam, take the free PPC Fundamentals Course offered by Semrush Academy.
This is a basic exam, but it’s essential for beginners as it makes complicated and advanced concepts easier to learn.
You can take the training and get certified for free with a Semrush account.
The Microsoft Ad network displays PPC ads across several channels, including Bing search, Yahoo, and AOL. Next to Google, this is one certification you don’t want to skip if you’re serious about your paid Google Ads campaigns.
As a Microsoft Advertising Certified Professional, you’ll learn how to manage, set up, and optimize PPC campaigns across the Microsoft Ad network. To prepare for this exam, you’ll use a free 232-page study guide that covers an extensive amount of information that will be on the exam.
When you access the study guide, you’ll learn about Microsoft advertising policies and how the platform works. Once you pass the exam, you’ll get a certificate to print and your name will be added to Microsoft’s member directory.
Like Google, Microsoft offers this course and exam free of charge; you only need a Microsoft account to get certified.
PPC advertising on social media is huge, and most businesses use Facebook Ads because that’s where people spend a majority of their time. If you want to promote your business on Facebook, you need to learn how to use their advertising platform.
This certification course will teach you how to create and manage ads, establish your presence on Facebook, and read reports. This is important because Facebook offers some of the most nuanced and detailed audience targeting options. You can even target your competitors’ audiences.
There aren’t many courses or certifications specific to social media advertising, so this is a valuable certification that you can apply to other social channels. To start learning, access Meta Blueprint and select your certifications from there.
This certification is free, and you only need a Facebook account to get started.
This is a 10-hour certification course that covers 13 different aspects of PPC marketing. You’ll learn how to build, manage, and optimize PPC campaigns on any platform.
Compared to other courses that focus more on the details, this takes a more general approach that will help you get started right away. In addition to video tutorials and text lessons, you’ll get access to templates to build ads and landing pages so you can start your first PPC campaign quickly.
Currently, it costs a one-time fee of $99 to access all of the Direct institute courses and certifications. This includes PPC, CRO, SEO, Data Analytics, and Optimization.
Like any exam, you’ll need to study hard to pass your PPC certifications on the first try. Even though most exams are free, that doesn’t mean they’re easy. Here are some tips to prepare yourself to achieve a passing score.
Never underestimate the importance of knowing PPC basics like the back of your hand. Most course certifications place a strong emphasis on fundamentals, so make sure you don’t skip the basics. If you’ve been doing PPC ads for a while, brush up on your general knowledge to make sure you haven’t forgotten any important details.
Sometimes it helps to have a study partner you can talk to and go over points within real time. Text and video materials are helpful, but nothing beats discussing your points of confusion with someone else who might be able to rephrase things for you. You can also make up your own quizzes and run some paid search advertising campaign experiments together.
Most people make the mistake of waiting too long to take exams because they never feel ready. The truth is, you’re probably more ready than you think. It’s important to pace yourself and not rush into taking an exam, but if you’ve done a fair amount of studying, don’t wait until you feel like you’ll get a perfect score. The goal is not to get 100% on every exam. The goal is to pass and then use the feedback from the questions you missed to round out your knowledge and study more.
If you wait too long to take the exam, you’ll forget some of the things you’ve learned. However, if you take it before you’re truly ready, you either won’t pass or your knowledge won’t be retained afterward.
Last but not least, start acting on what you’ve learned as soon as possible. PPC advertising knowledge is important, but nothing solidifies concepts like applying them in the real world. If you want to leverage PPC marketing to get big results, you need to apply what you’ve learned to see how it all works.
Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. Start experimenting with a small test budget as soon as possible and in time, with dedication, your skills will improve and you’ll be able to get the higher conversion rates most businesses only dream of achieving.
What does it mean to optimize a PPC campaign?
In the abstract sense, optimizing a PPC advertising campaign is simply making changes so that the campaign performs better. But then, what exactly is “better”?
It’s a tricky and complicated equation. Your optimization practices will require tweaks to your advertising, your targets, your landing pages, and possibly even what you sell to your customers.
Most optimizers make all of these changes in pursuit of one or a small handful of different metrics. But I’m here to make the case that if you optimize for CPC, CPA, CPL, or even ROI, you might be missing out on your true potential.
Instead, you need to optimize for profit.
Part of the problem here is that there are so many different metrics you can track in a PPC campaign. We live in an era where data is abundant, and where even inexperienced marketing managers must take on the role of a data analyst at least occasionally.
When there are so many different variables and metrics to juggle, it can become overwhelming.
Just take a look at the following:
All of these metrics can tell you how your campaign is performing, and all of them are worth optimizing for. But when it comes down to it, are some of these superior to the others? If you have high marks in each area, does that really mean you’re performing to your fullest potential?
Let’s explore this idea.
Now let’s make the case for why profit should be your number one concern when optimizing a PPC campaign.
Let’s say we have two different businesses, Alpha and Beta.
Alpha is currently operating with a $100 CPA and an impressive ROI of 10x, ultimately earning 10 times their initial investment.
Beta is currently operating with a $200 CPA and an ROI of 5x, ultimately earning 5 times their initial investment.
Which business is doing better overall?
Your first instinct should tell you that Alpha is doing better. Getting your CPA lower is a mark of higher efficiency, and many advertisers treat ROI as the gold standard for measuring campaign effectiveness. With both a higher CPA and a higher ROI, we should expect Alpha to be better.
But of course, we wouldn’t present a hypothetical situation like this if the answer was so obvious.
The reality is, either one of these advertisers could be doing better; we simply don’t have enough information to tell.
We’re already using our imaginations, so let’s imagine a few more details.
Let’s say Alpha currently gets 15 conversions with a per-conversion margin of $1,000.
Beta, however, currently gets 40 conversions with a per-conversion margin of $1,000.
The margins are the same – but which company is doing better?
Alpha’s gross margin with 15 conversions should be $15,000.
Beta’s gross margin with 40 conversions should be $40,000.
Alpha spent $1,500 to get there, leading to an ROI of 10x.
Beta spent $8,000 to get there, leading to an ROI of 5x.
Cool! Alpha still has better overall metrics than Beta.
But let’s look at their total profitability. Alpha made $15,000 and spent $1,500, giving them $13,500 in profit. Beta made $40,000 and spent $8,000, giving them $32,000 in profit.
Now tell me – would you rather have a $13,500 profit or a $32,000 profit?
In this scenario, Beta is actually doing better. Are you surprised?
Seeing this scenario unfold is like witnessing a magic trick. It feels like there’s something wrong or something missing in this equation, but the crux of the trick is actually quite simple.
The big difference is volume. Though the efficiency metrics of Alpha are far superior, Beta is securing more conversions. Assuming the profit margins are the same, Beta is doing better because the company is ultimately seeing more conversions from their campaign.
If you choose to optimize for profit, rather than optimizing for other metrics, you can see similarly powerful results. Instead of trying to chase peak efficiency metrics or brag about your low CPA, you’ll be maximizing the profitability of your advertising – and greatly benefiting in the long run.
Too often, PPC ad managers suffer from status quo thinking.
They believe that as long as they’re getting clicks with a positive ROI, the campaign is worth continuing to run as is.
Part of this is a fear of loss; if you tinker with too many variables, you could end up compromising your results rather than improving them. Another part of this is sheer laziness; why bother trying to improve your PPC campaign if it’s already performing decently enough?
In any case, it’s your responsibility to step up and continue optimizing your campaign for better performance. That doesn’t mean you can’t be satisfied with good results – it just means that you have to keep pushing for better results.
So, how do you see those better results?
What actionable steps can you take to optimize for profit in your PPC campaign?
Are you interested in optimizing your PPC advertising campaign for profit?
Or are you struggling to get your PPC engine up and running?
PPC.co could be the perfect partner for you. Contact us today for a free consultation or to learn more about our PPC advertising services!
There are few variables as important to your PPC campaign as your cost per click (CPC).
It represents what you’ll pay for each user who clicks on your targeted ads – which means a difference of even a few cents can add up to thousands of dollars in a large-scale campaign.
Unfortunately, you can’t directly manipulate this variable the way you can, say, the number of ads you run or the total budget of your campaign. Your CPC is determined by Google (or the advertiser of your choice, though we’ll be mostly focusing on Google in this guide).
But you can influence your CPC with the right strategies.
And if you’re persistent, you can bring it down to a very reasonable number.
So how do you do it?
Why should you care about lowering your cost per click in PPC?
The obvious benefit is that it can save you money.
Think about it; if you can maintain a consistent conversion rate, with a consistent conversion value, a lower CPC will lead directly to a higher ROI for your strategy. It’s a lower cost basis, with all other factors being (mostly) equal.
Lower CPCs can also help you target better keywords more aggressively, make the most of a thin budget, and compete with rivals that would otherwise outspend you easily.
In this guide, we’ll focus on several tactics that can help you lower your CPC. These factors can be grouped into two main categories:
We’ll start by focusing on your Quality Score; again, the higher this rating is, the lower your CPC should be.
In this section, we’ll be focusing on Quality Score in Google Ads. Keep in mind that other PPC platforms have similar advertiser ratings that may function differently.
According to Google, Quality Score is typically calculated based on three factors. Each of these three factors is rated as average, above average, or below average.
Above average ratings in all three areas should lead to a higher Quality Score, which in turn, should lower your CPCs.
Here are some of the best tactics you can use to boost your Quality Score reliably:
Let’s say you’ve maxed out your Quality Score and you’re still not satisfied with your CPC.
What can you do?
A secondary option is to avoid high-demand niches and limit your competition.
Apart from strategic business decisions (like a full pivot), these are your best tactics here:
Do you want to lower your overall CPC?
Do you find yourself hoping for a more cost effective, higher-ROI PPC campaign?
Are you unsure where to start?
PPC.co has the experts who can help – so contact us for a free consultation today!
Search volume is one of the most important variables to consider when studying any keyword, regardless of whether you’re building a pay per click (PPC) advertising campaign or are optimizing for organic search.
In the context of a PPC campaign, search volume indicates how many people are searching for a given keyword or group of keywords. The higher the search volume, the more people are actively searching for it.
Obviously, high search volume is a positive sign that your targeted search term is popular, since it’s being searched by thousands of people.
But high search volume is also associated with more expensive advertising costs.
Today, we’re going to look at the other end of the spectrum: low volume keywords. Keywords with low search volume can be a hindrance to your PPC campaign, especially if that search volume is so low that ads don’t even show up for searches of these keywords.
At the same time, there are some opportunities for PPC strategists to get an edge when they manage low volume keywords correctly.
First, let’s clarify our terms.
A “low volume” keyword, in a generic context, is one that has relatively low search volume.
For our purposes, we’re referring to keywords that are listed in Google Ads with a specific “low search volume” designation.
These keywords have such a low search volume that Google isn’t even willing to display advertisements for people who search them. If the search volume climbs to exceed the threshold set by Google, the network will begin displaying ads for them.
There are many reasons why a keyword could be low volume. It could be because the topic itself is relatively unpopular. It could be because a similar, stronger keyword is cannibalizing traffic. Or it could be because the keyword or phrase is peculiarly worded, making it less popular for average searchers.
In any case, a low volume keyword is not going to contribute to your PPC campaign – at least until you make some modifications.
Are low volume keywords harmful for your PPC campaign?
For the most part, the answer is no. If a keyword is designated as low search volume, you won’t display any ads for it; this is a neutral consequence, since you won’t gain anything, but you also won’t lose anything.
However, it’s worth noting that low volume keywords can affect your quality score, ultimately impacting your campaign in a negative way if you aren’t careful.
Managing low volume keywords in a PPC campaign is typically less about avoiding negative consequences and more about making the best possible use of the keywords, tools, and resources available to you. If a low search volume keyword can be replaced by a better keyword, you should do it.
One of the best ways to deal with low volume keywords is to avoid them whenever possible. A low search volume keyword isn’t going to add anything to your campaign – so you should probably put your energy elsewhere.
An easy way to do this is to target a similar, but more “general” keyword phrase related to your low search volume keyword, then utilize a broad match type to get more keyword coverage.
Broad match keywords and keyword close variants allow you to target many different interrelated keywords at once. Rather than specifically targeting individual keywords, one by one, you can target an entire group of keywords related to a general subject.
For example, if you use a broad match keyword like “veterinary training program,” your ads may also appear for keywords and phrases like “vet training program near me” or “veterinary training classes.”
Unfortunately, there’s a significant downside to this strategy; it usually results in increased costs.
General terms with high search volume are associated with much higher demand than their hyper-specific, low-volume counterparts. That means more companies are bidding on ads for them, which in turn, drives ad prices up.
So what’s better – enjoy cheap, minimally competitive ads for keywords that hardly get any traffic, or deal with the high prices of advertising to high-traffic keywords?
This is the dilemma PPC ad managers must navigate.
Additionally, you can avoid low search volume keywords by choosing totally different targets; instead of targeting a more general phrase, you can target a phrase completely unrelated to your original target. This may or may not be viable, depending on your industry and target audience.
Avoidance is usually the best strategy for low search volume keywords; in other words, find a way not to use them.
But what happens when your low search volume keywords are some of your best targets?
This happens in a variety of different conditions. If your business is in a relatively new industry, or an unusually niche industry, there may not be significant search demand for your most important target keywords. If your business has a very strict budget, you may not have the financial resources necessary to compete with your competitors on a broad scale. And if you need hyper-specific keywords for your advertising strategy to work, avoidance doesn’t make any sense.
Thankfully, there are some management options available to you in these conditions.
RLSA (remarketing list for search ads) and the closely related ALSA (audience list for search ads) are examples of strategic options that allow you to use audience-based criteria to control how your ads are displayed. These allow you to target your audience members more specifically, giving you greater control over your advertising and potentially giving you an affordable path forward.
Pursuing more focused audience targeting can help you bring down the average cost of your advertisements (when targeting broad terms), while simultaneously boosting the relevance of your ad content (assuming you’ve done your market research).
Another option is to intentionally stimulate demand for your most important low search volume keywords. The big problem with low search volume keywords in Google Ads is a limited number of people conducting searches for them; if you can drive those searches up, the problem disappears.
The only problem with this approach is that artificially stimulating demand for new searches can be prohibitively expensive and difficult, depending on the subject.
Also, keep in mind that search volume is always fluctuating. Just because one of your keywords is qualified as low search volume currently doesn’t mean it will remain there indefinitely. If there are low volume keywords that could be valuable to you in the future, consider pausing them temporarily and returning to them when search volume increases in the future. This is especially valuable if you predict a surge in search volume for this term in the near future.
These are some of the most important takeaways for how to manage low volume keywords in Google Ads:
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PPC (Pay Per Click) marketing is an effective way to drive relevant organic traffic to your website. It’s a paid advertising mechanism that involves bidding on specific keywords in search engine results pages in order to occupy the top spots or paying for ads that are displayed at the top of those results.
Crafting an effective PPC campaign requires careful attention and planning; keyword research, audience segmentation, content optimization, conversion tracking, and more all come into play when marketers look to deliver successful Paid Search campaigns.
However, many overlook how their website design can also affect their PPC campaigns—yet it has just as large of an impact if not more, than any other factor considered during setup. Website design has become increasingly important recently due to its ability to create customer relationships, which ultimately impacts long-term profits.
In this article, we will discuss why good website design ties directly into successful PPC campaigns and how you can use web design to increase your returns on ad spending.
Having a tailored landing page for your ads is one of the most fundamental steps toward succeeding in PPC campaigns.
Without one, you’re essentially shooting yourself in the foot and limiting your potential ROAS (return on ad spend).
The importance of placing a call-to-action (CTA) on your landing page cannot be understated when running a successful PPC campaign. A CTA is essentially an instruction to the user, either prompting them to take action in some form or simply encouraging further engagement with content.
CTAs ensure that users know what it is you’re trying to accomplish from each visit and where they need to go once they have arrived at your site.
Having multiple CTAs not only allows you to better segment audiences but also keeps website visitors engaged for more extended periods as there are numerous paths available for them within your site structure—ease of navigation does wonders for overall user experience and therefore affects conversion rates directly related to effectiveness campaigns.
Having a clear continuity between the messages of your PPC ads and corresponding landing pages is paramount for success in most campaigns.
If an ad has targeted certain keywords, you must make sure to adjust any given page content accordingly so that customers don’t feel misled or confused when they get there—one metric known as ‘intent landing rate’ looks into whether visitors meet what they were promised with the initial message.
It might sound like a slight difference, but subtle elements such as typos and minor grammatical standings affect the level of engagement around calls-to-action (CTAs) regardless of how attractive chosen design layout themes may have been, so the best practice is to keep everything consistent from the beginning to end for a very successful campaign.
Having a website that offers great usability is as essential to PPC campaigns as any other metric related to it.
Aspects like how quickly users can access information, ease of navigation while they’re within a page, and logical structure all play their part in ensuring a good user experience. If these elements are neglected, then you may find yourself paying more for clicks than competitors or, worse – falling behind on the goals set out for your overall campaign performance.
Utilizing proper calls-to-action (CTAs) on your landing pages is an excellent way to help increase user conversion rates and return on investments –contact forms, add-to-cart buttons as well subscription emails effectively guide visitors in the desired direction, which, in this case, directly correlate with having a successful PPC campaign.
It is important that these CTAs are configured correctly so there are no confusing paths for users to take, which may lead them away from whatever it was you were trying to accomplish beforehand.
For example, contact forms have become somewhat standard optimization tactics due to their plethora of benefits, including gathering valuable insights around customer interests and any products/services offered, helping marketers segment visitor types even further detailed levels of conversions conducted as well as gaining additional information about who may visiting business website just generally being companion much success single campaigns across many platforms.
It is of great importance that websites are designed to offer logical pathways for users in order to access information quickly and easily.
This means focusing on user experience when designing a website or its associated landing pages—good navigation, clear brand messaging, and detailed descriptions of products/services being offered must all be taken into account.
Having organized content helps guide potential customers toward the goals set out by your campaign rather than being left confused.
In addition to having good website design and usability, what ultimately determines the success of your PPC campaigns comes down to monitoring tracking & measurement tools over time.
Data Analytics features such as heatmaps & click maps serve a great purpose in understanding how people interact with content when arriving from different channels such as organic search or Paid Advertising – it is known that people behave differently depending on which route they take, for instance, so this form of analytics can be valuable in finding out exactly who visitors are looking for products/services through.
Additionally, A/B testing has become extremely popular due to its effectiveness in demonstrating better results when trying experiments by making small tweaks without necessarily having drastic changes being made while undertaking CRO projects.
Data analytics features such as heatmaps & click maps are essential in understanding user journeys from when they first arrived on a page through to when they take the desired action you set out for them – this type of analytics helps give marketers insight into how people behave and interact with content, what areas should be focused more attention on and other useful information.
Additionally, it is possible to use A/B testing experiments extensively in order to find the best way of attracting customers using small changes while undergoing various conversion rate optimization (CRO) projects.
The use of heatmaps & click maps, form analytics, and A/B testing can be utilized to acquire a greater understanding of user behavior.
Heatmaps show us how users interact with content within sites by displaying popular clicks as well as less popular elements while also focusing on page loading times; this is an important metric in terms of website design since speed matters significantly when it comes to creating great user experiences.
Click-maps focus more closely on interactions such as dropdowns, forms, and buttons which are commonly used for data collection purposes –they display the percentages at which visitors succeed or fail when navigating particular pages so marketers can adjust CTA placements accordingly.
Form analytics help tracks various behaviors, including list opt-ins, site registrations, etc., whereas remarketing tactics further help keep customers engaged over time -all these methods will eventually lead to larger ROIs if executed correctly since better target segments have been accessed through proper tracking efforts implemented throughout any campaign setup.
Remarketing tactics come into play when it comes to maintaining tracking & measurement tools over time. These methods are extremely important for long-term campaigns since they serve as a reminder of what once attracted customers and can help boost conversions in the future, thanks to its “cookie sync” feature that can be used across different channels while also offering insights into previous successes and serving as a roadmap pointing out paths one should choose to keep performance up optimally.
Using conversion tracking tools helps marketers gain a better understanding of the effectiveness of their campaign by allowing them to track various metrics such as referred sales, sign-ups, abandoned cart items, etc. – this is especially germane when during CRO projects as it may become necessary to analyze traction levels through logging points within customer journey reach the ultimate goal.
In conclusion, boosting your paid traffic through optimized web design is vital to the success of any PPC campaigns that you run. It is essential to have a tailored landing page with relevant messaging and an effective call-to-action (CTA), so visitors are not misled when they land on the page.
Furthermore, ensuring continuity between an ad’s message and its corresponding destination pages can be beneficial as it prevents confusion or false expectations from customers due to contradicting messages being experienced in different channels.
Additionally, focusing on creating a great user experience through usability optimization will do wonders for conversions. From optimizing PPC to tailoring your landing page, our comprehensive PPC or SEO campaign have everything you need to win.
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Google Analytics and Google Ads are two of the most popular digital marketing tools available.
They offer a wide range of features and capabilities that can help marketers successfully promote their products or services in their target market.
For businesses trying to maximize their return on investment from their online advertising efforts, linking these two powerful platforms together can have a huge impact on the success of the campaigns.
The process for linking both channels is fairly straightforward, but it does require some technical knowledge before you can get started.
In this article, we will walk through the steps required to connect your Google Ads account with your Google Analytics property in order to take advantage of all available data insights.
First, we’ll cover how to set up accounts or log into your existing ones. Then we will discuss the steps necessary for connecting those accounts together so that they are talking to one another. From there, we’ll explain how to specify what kind of data links are needed with each other as well as how to create custom reports and tags in both platforms.
By following along with these instructions, you should be able to build upon both platforms and refine your campaigns based on invaluable data insights from linkages between Google Ads and Analytics.
The first thing that you need to do before linking your Google Analytics account with your Google Ads campaign is to create a Google account.
If you do not already have one, you can sign up for free at accounts.google.com.
Once this account is created, you will need to log in using the same user name and password that you used for signing up for your AdWords campaigns. It is important that both accounts are associated with the same email address as well so that they will be linked together correctly later on in the process.
If both of these accounts already exist and are associated with the same email, then there is no need to create a new one; simply log into each platform by going to their respective login pages (Google Analytics and AdWords).
Once inside, it may require additional steps such as registration completion, setting up payment methods, etc…but all of these should take only a few minutes at most if everything else has been set up correctly beforehand.
There may also be an extra layer of activity authorizations required by enterprise customers so make sure that those requirements have been met prior in beginning this step.
Once the above steps have been taken, you’re ready to start the process for connecting your accounts together.
From within your Google Analytics property page, navigate over to “Admin” and select “AdWords Linking” which will be found under the Property column.
Completing this step will generate two separate pieces of information (Client@ID and Website@ID) that need to be copied into your AdWords account in order for them to link properly together.
Once these IDs are added, it is important to ensure that both accounts verify each other before proceeding with any activity linking; if the Client @ID generated by GA does not match up then the linking process could fail altogether, resulting in a mismatch of data between platforms.
To review your assigned report suites click on “Website Data” then go down to “Linked Reporting Services” in order to check as necessary. This will allow users to make sure all relevant ad accounts have access so that said changes can take full effect.
Once the linking process is successful between Google Ads and Analytics, it’s time to select what data you would like to track when they are shared with each other.
This can be done in a few easy steps from within the Google Ads interface.
First, click on “Tools & Settings” in the upper right-hand corner, which will then open up the Tools drop down menu. Click on “Data Sources” followed by selecting “Google Analytics” found within that menu.
On this page, you will see a list of AdWords accounts associated with your login as well as some detailed linking information such as account views and report suites associated with them; select which ones you’d like to link with Analytics so that all relevant activity can be tracked across platforms.
Once this has been completed, save changes and proceed onto customizing tags and creating goals for both tools if desired.
After selecting the data that you want to track across both tools, it is important to think about all additional resources available in order to maximize the campaigns return on investment.
This includes customizing tags, events and goals within each tool as well as setting up multiple campaign variables with Adwords so that controlling specific activity served can be done more efficiently.
Tags are identifiers used by click tracking technology so of course, they need to be created properly in order for this information to be tracked accurately; most analytics tools will require users having to set up custom tags, while others will allow them create automated ones depending on need.
Additionally, useful elements like Goals should also be set up beforehand since these ideas give decisive feedback when evaluating performance based on user activities and customer interactions.
Segments can also play a huge role in better understanding your customers, which Analytics render the use of immensely helpful for marketers when creating highly targeted campaigns across multiple devices.
Once all the necessary steps have been taken, now it’s time to track results.
Currently, this can be done by going into an overview in your Google Ads account or Analytics property page which will give a high-level picture of activities generated by campaigns as well as sites events associated with them.
To get a more detailed view, it might be necessary to generate custom reports containing the past and present activity is broken down across different dimensions like channels, AdWords campaigns, and other specific elements; these extended analytics can provide valuable insight on how customers interact with separate platforms so taking the time to go through different reports available is recommended.
As always, tracking raw data should be done regularly so that users can more accurately interpret their performance overall and make educated decisions based off accurate information going forward.
This can include campaign optimization plans involving expanding offering or tweaking specific aspects for an improved customer experience when engaging with promoted content.
It’s also important to note that there are additional variables, such as audience segmentation and using specialty tools ( ex. Search Console )that need setting up, but those operations require more than just linking both services discussed today; nonetheless, integrating Google Ads with Analytics continues being one of the best strategies available for improving digital marketing efforts dramatically.
In this article, we’ve discussed how to link Google Analytics and Google Ads accounts so that users can take full advantage of their capabilities when creating digital marketing campaigns.
We covered steps from setting up or logging into your Google accounts all the way to customizing tags, events and generating objectives for both platforms.
It should be noted that the above method is for linking an AdWords account with one specific Property in GA, but there are many more possibilities outside of those limitations.
Understanding each platform’s potential and carefully employing certain tactics can lead to major improvements over time, something that any marketer trying to maximize returns on investments heavily relies on.
If you were part of the earliest generation of internet users, you might cringe when you see the term “banner ads.”
But the reality is, banner ads are a remarkably effective advertising strategy in the modern era – and they’ve come a long way from the obnoxious, flashing prototypes of yesteryear.
When you place banner ads, you can pay for them in any number of different ways. You might purchase banner ads with a pay per click (PPC) strategy where you only pay for the clicks you receive. But it’s more common to pay for impressions.
For example, if you have an ad with a $5 CPM rate, you’ll pay a meager $5 for each 1,000 views of the ad on a target website.
If you’re optimizing for brand awareness or the highest stages of your sales funnel, impressions might be enough. But for the rest of us, it’s important to optimize for clicks in this scenario. After all, if you’re not generating clicks, you’re probably not generating revenue. And if you’re not generating revenue, you’re not going to have a positive return on investment (ROI).
So what steps can you take to increase banner ad clicks?
Most of us remember the troubled history of banner ads.
Aggressive banner ads were on almost every website, flashing and shaking to get our attention while advertising some truly questionable products and services.
But modern banner ads are much more refined. These advertisements are highly targeted, they’re designed to be both relevant to a target audience and appropriate for the website on which they’re featured. And they must be as noninvasive as possible – or else, they’re going to be removed by the hosting website or the distribution network.
You also need to keep in mind that most web users remember or at least acknowledge a past in which banner ads were spammy and annoying. People, in general, don’t like obnoxious advertisements, so they’ll willfully ignore most of the overt banner ads they encounter in the wild. In other words, you have your work cut out for you.
If you’re going to keep your ads rotating and relevant in modern times, while simultaneously pleasing your target audience, you need to optimize those ads to be as relevant and attractive as possible.
Let’s look at the strategies that can help you get there.
Now for the meat of this article: how to increase banner ad clicks.
These are some of the best tactics for earning more clicks from your banner ads across your entire campaign:
Your first priority should be better understanding your target audience. Who are your target demographics and how are you going to appeal to them? Some advertisers make the mistake of appealing to the most general, universal audience, with the hope of reaching a greater number of people – but this is a mistake. It’s typically better to have very specific content that’s relevant to a defined niche, even if that niche is relatively small. Do the upfront work of conducting market research and thorough surveys so you can understand more about how your demographics think, how they make purchasing decisions, and how they might respond to different types of advertising. With this information, you’ll be able to craft ads and messages that are much more appealing and persuasive.
Google has some important rules and guidelines you’ll want to follow for your banner ads. Even if you’re displaying these ads on a different network, these are good rules of thumb to follow. Your banner ads can’t contain any flashing or shaking elements designed to hijack the attention of users; they also can’t masquerade as part of the website, tricking users into taking action through deception or false information. In general, if you treat your users with respect and commit to straightforward honesty, you should have no trouble getting through these filters.
Your banner ads will attract far more clicks if they’re placed on websites that are relevant to your users as well as what you’re selling. For example, let’s say you have a business that sells mountain biking gear. Do you think your banner ad will attract more clicks on a forum for outdoorsmen or a website that brings together a crocheting community? There’s probably some overlap between crocheters and mountain bikers, but we can safely assume that the outdoorsy website is going to yield better results. Fortunately, Google and other ad networks give you considerable control over what types of websites host your banner ads.
The design of your ad is arguably the most important variable to perfect, since it’s going to be responsible for forming first impressions and attracting the attention necessary for your words to have an impact. It’s important that the aesthetic is specifically appealing to your target demographics. For example, younger audiences might prefer brighter colors and more exciting, dynamic materials, while older audiences might appreciate more subtlety and minimalism. Young parents might appreciate photos of children and families spending time together, while wealthy buyers of luxury products want to see images of a lavish lifestyle.
Banner ads come in a variety of shapes and sizes, but they generally occupy a minimal amount of space on a website. It’s tempting to cram as much information as possible into this relatively small canvas, but minimalism is a safer strategy. If you make use of white space, and only include the designs and information that are truly valuable, you’ll make the most of the space you have while simultaneously avoiding the risk of overwhelming your audience.
A clever tagline or hook is another way to capture user attention. Banner ads don’t typically provide you with much space, so you need to reduce your message to its simplest possible form. Instead of giving your users a bulleted list of advantages granted by your product, or explaining to them why your services are useful in a full paragraph, you have to get your point across and motivate action in the span of one or two sentences. This can be a difficult task even for the best copywriters, so spend some extra time brainstorming and whittling down your list of possibilities. Try to motivate action without resorting to cliches; the more original and exciting your hook is, the more clicks you’re going to get.
If you want people to click through, you need to give them a clear motivation, so try to include a clear call to action (CTA). Action words tend to be more effective than other types of language; for example, a phrase like “clean your kitchen faster than ever – shop now!” will probably generate more clicks than “wish your kitchen was cleaner, faster?” even though both phrases are topically similar.
People will be much more likely to click if you stimulate their curiosity. Instead of telling them or showing them everything up front, get them thinking about the possibilities. For example, a phrase like “ever wonder what a better dating app could look like?” will probably generate more clicks than a phrase like “the dating app you’ve always wanted” accompanied by still images that show off the best features of the app immediately.
I know this goes against most design fundamentals, and will probably irritate half of our audience, but the reality is, ugly ads can perform well. Why? Maybe some of us have a morbid curiosity. Maybe “beautiful” ads are so abundant that people long for something different. Or maybe especially ugly ads are simply better at generating initial attention. Whatever the case, we’ve found that deliberately ugly ads have the potential to generate clicks in a powerful way. It doesn’t always work, and you have to be careful not to damage your brand reputation, but it’s a worthwhile strategy to keep in your back pocket.
Just because the ad is displayed on a website doesn’t mean that people are going to see it, even if they’re counted as an impression. If you want to get more user attention, and therefore more clicks, you need to stand out with bolder visuals. The best visual elements are ones that provide strong contrast; ideally, you’ll break away from the style of the website hosting the ad while simultaneously presenting something visually stimulating, like complementary colors. Experiment with different placements to see how your ad might fit in the context of different types of websites. You might be surprised to find how much it blends in without a deliberate effort to help it stand out.
There’s no rule that says you can’t have any animation in your banner ads, though aggressive animations like flashing and shaking could get your ad removed. When used responsibly, animations can draw more attention to your banner ad, ultimately inviting more clicks and forming a better impression with your users. If you choose to do this, make sure your animation is eye-catching, yet subtle enough to avoid disrupting users unnecessarily. Slow pans or zooms could be exactly what you need.
Before we conclude this article, we need to stress an important truth: clicks aren’t everything.
In following this guide, and developing more banner ad campaigns, you’ll be tempted to optimize for clicks at the expense of every other metric. It’s true that clicks are a good thing for your campaign, but you can’t afford to neglect other performance indicators and important variables.
For example, you’ll still need to think about the engagement value and conversion rates of your landing pages. Even if you have the best banner ad in the world that generates an insane number of clicks, your strategy will fall apart if your landing page is unengaging or incapable of facilitating conversions.
Put simply, clicks are just one part of a “balanced diet” of banner ad metrics to track. Try not to lose sight of this in your pursuit of advertising greatness.
Hopefully, our strategies and tips have been helpful in reshaping your banner advertising strategy.
But there’s no such thing as a perfect approach to advertising; you can always make your ads more relevant and better at generating clicks.
If you want to continuously optimize your banner ad campaign, this is the process you’ll need to follow moving forward:
Banner ads are easy to display, but tough to master.
If you want your banner ads to stand out and get more clicks, or if you just need help fine-tuning your existing display ad strategy, we’ve got you covered. At PPC.co, we have a robust team of seasoned experts to help you accomplish all your digital advertising goals.
Contact our expert PPC agency today for more information!
Now that most businesses operate online, the competition has increased exponentially in many industries.
It’s becoming harder to increase revenue without employing advanced eCommerce marketing strategies. When running paid ads, it’s getting more expensive to acquire new customers, and successful ads require more planning than ever before.
Although an increase in competition doesn’t mean you can’t be successful. It just means you need to work a little harder to get results. The good news is you can start driving more sales by using the following 9 simple and effective eCommerce marketing strategies.
Remarketing, also called retargeting, is a PPC ad strategy that can go deep. This is a strategy that anyone can employ, with any level of experience, but there is no limit to how detailed you can get.
Retargeting is when you run PPC ads that specifically target only users who have previously interacted with your brand, either by visiting your website or clicking on your ads. Since 92% of first-time visitors don’t intend to buy, you can influence them into making a purchase by showing them more ads. This keeps them in your marketing funnel even when you don’t know who they are; you don’t need their email address to nurture them.
The statistics vary between organizations, but generally speaking, a solid remarketing campaign can boost conversions by around 50%. Those are not small potatoes!
When people see your ads more than once, your brand becomes familiar to them and makes them more likely to click, provided the ad is relevant to what they want. This is why market research and selecting your target audience are important.
Google’s Shopping campaigns are the perfect way to reach consumers right when they’re searching for something specific that you happen to offer. When a user searches for a phrase related to your products, your ads will show up at the top of the search results. You can include important information in your ads, like product images, prices, special offers, customer ratings, and anything else designed to persuade users to click.
How it works is pretty simple. First, you create a master list of product data in a spreadsheet that identifies your products and all the pertinent information. This gets uploaded to Google’s Merchant Center, which you’ll connect to your Google Ads account. From there, Google’s algorithm will automatically spin up ads for your products based on user search queries.
Instead of creating one campaign with one Ad Group that gets divided into product groups, consider running separate campaigns tailored to attributes that are important to your market. For instance, you can run a generic campaign, a brand campaign, and a campaign that runs ads based on brand and size queries. This way, you’ll reach people searching for generic terms (like “men’s hoodies”), brand-specific terms (like “Nike men’s hoodies”), and size-specific searches (like “Nike men’s hoodies XXL”).
This type of structure is superior because you get better control over negative keywords, and increasing your bids will yield more targeted impressions and clicks. If you don’t use this more nuanced ad structure, you’ll have to remove items from your entire feed if you want to exclude them, and some of your products might never be seen.
You’ll have more campaigns to manage, but it’s worth the effort because it will get you more targeted traffic in the long run. If you’re looking for ways to drive a bunch of relevant traffic to your website, you need to run Google Shopping ads.
One last tip is to use remarketing with your Shopping ads. The average conversion for Google Shopping ads is just under 2%, which doesn’t seem like much. However, these ads work well as the foundation for a powerful retargeting campaign.
Did you know that Amazon’s brand ads convert an average of three times higher than Google Shopping Ads? Running ads on Amazon is crucial for your eCommerce business. The sponsored brand ads in particular will promote up to three products at a time and get displayed in search results across the site. Since they show up when users are looking for something specific, it makes sense that they’d see a high conversion rate.
Are you against using pop-up ads to avoid annoying users? This is common among marketers, but it’s based on a myth. Pop-ups have a reputation for being off-putting to web users, but that’s not actually deserved. In spite of this reputation, there are plenty of effective pop-up ad strategies that are proven to generate higher conversion rates, whether it’s sales or email list signups.
You can use pop-up with your paid ad strategies as long as they adhere to Google’s guidelines. If you place a pop-up ad on a landing page, it needs to directly represent the offer in your ad or else people will bounce. It’s risky, but can yield big conversions when done right.
If you’re not cross-selling and upselling, you’re leaving money on the table. Both of these strategies are proven methods to increase conversions.
Upselling is when you aim to increase the value of each purchase. Cross-selling is increasing the number of items on the sales ticket. For example, if you run a custom t-shirt shop, cross-selling might include offering customers the same designs on a baseball hat, or providing a discount on additional t-shirts. Upselling might involve offering an upgrade to a higher quality, more expensive t-shirt fabric (like organic cotton or hemp).
These marketing methods will boost revenue, increase customer satisfaction, and support your efforts to build long-term relationships with loyal customers. However, the items you cross-sell need to be relevant to the customer’s needs or it won’t work.
One of the best examples of cross-selling can be seen in the marketing for Dollar Shave Club. Before a subscription box is mailed out, customers get an email asking if they would like to add any additional products to their order, like aftershave, wet wipes, or hair care products.
Cross-selling and upselling are convenient because they won’t cost you any additional marketing spend and they can help you acquire more customers affordably. With the right application connected to your shopping cart system, all you need to do is program the offers once and they’ll run on their own.
You may have heard expert digital marketers say that social marketing is only good for building brand awareness and isn’t ideal for sales. Well, that’s not entirely true. It depends on the platform and your market. For example, Instagram has a built-in shopping feature that makes it easy for people to buy from businesses. All you need is a Facebook product catalog, and you can tag your products in your Instagram posts. Now, when your fan base sees your posts promoting your products, they can click on your tags to visit your product pages instead of having to search your website for the awesome products they just saw on Instagram.
Social shopping on Instagram, Facebook, and other platforms, reduces the friction users feel when searching for products. Your followers can buy from you seamlessly and easily right from your posts.
You’ve probably visited a website or received an email from a company that was promoting another business. This is called cross-promotion, and it’s one of the most effective eCommerce marketing strategies around.
The basic idea is that you find a company to partner with who will promote your products. Sometimes you’ll land a mutual agreement, but not always. These kinds of deals usually require payment as a percentage of sales brought in by the company promoting your business. For example, if company A promotes your t-shirts and their efforts generate $5,000 for the month, you’ll pay them a percentage of that amount that you agree on ahead of time.
One eCommerce marketing tactic that gets big results is social proof. Your potential customers need to see proof that you are a trustworthy business and that you have great products. Social proof (like reviews and testimonials) goes a long way to impress potential customers and influence them to buy from you.
Your leads are most likely on a budget and they don’t want to risk wasting money on something that doesn’t work or live up to their standards. They’re going to be selective, so you need extra reinforcement to convince them to make a purchase. Reviews and testimonials are exactly that.
Make sure you display product ratings and customer reviews on all of your product pages. At first, it may take you a while to generate a substantial amount of reviews, but after a while, you’ll get them and they will help persuade new customers.
You don’t need to get only positive reviews, either. Having a mix of positive and negative is actually seen as more trustworthy than having a 100% five-star rating. Your products won’t be for everyone, and some reviews under five stars will still be helpful. Knowing what didn’t work for others might help people choose between different items, for example. Even if a review deflects sales from some people, that’s okay, because you can’t please everyone.
Referral marketing is another term for word-of-mouth marketing, and it’s one of the most effective methods you can employ. People take the opinions of others very seriously, and that includes friends, family, and online reviews. According to a BrightLocal survey, 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as they trust recommendations made by friends. That’s some big trust for opinions posted by strangers.
So, how do you start referral marketing? How do you get people to post reviews and recommend you to their friends? The short answer is to start incentivizing referrals. The simplest way to do this is by offering a cash bonus to anyone who refers a paying customer to you. Give people referral links, and anyone who makes a purchase from a link will generate a cash reward for the link’s owner. This is simple and effective.
If you want a successful marketing campaign, you need the right tools and the expertise to turn leads into sales. We can help you with this. Whether you need high-converting PPC ads, Facebook and Google ad management, a PPC audit, better landing pages, or a full package deal, we have you covered.
We work with Google, Facebook, Amazon, YouTube, and LinkedIn ads, plus we offer display ads and retargeting management. We can create, manage, or improve any paid ad campaigns you need.
Contact us today to learn more about our PPC ad management services and get a free proposal for your business.
04/When it comes to PPC advertising, getting people to click on your ad is only half the battle. From there, you also need them to click on the call to action (CTA) on your landing page.
That’s the only way to actually convert leads. So if your landing pages are struggling to convert visitors, maybe it’s your CTA.
Fortunately, there are many ways to get more users to click on your CTAs. You just need to learn the tricks of the trade.
In this article, we’ll go over what those landing page CTA best practices are, but first, let’s define what a CTA is in the first place.
A call to action (CTA) is the most important part of a PPC landing page. It’s what converts visitors into leads and drives your conversion goals.
Basically, a CTA is a prompt that invites users to take a specific action.
Most CTAs offer something valuable (like a free ebook download or newsletter signup) in exchange for the user’s contact information (like their name and email address).
The point of the CTA is to lead potential customers into your sales funnel. From there, you can nurture them with more valuable content until they eventually make a purchase.
So how do you make the CTAs on your landing pages as effective as possible? Here are ten tips:
The CTA button is just what it sounds like. It’s a virtual button on your landing page that contains the CTA. For example, the CTA button might be a green rectangle that includes the words “Download Your Free Ebook.”
Whatever your CTA button is, you want it to stand out from the rest of the page. To do this, you can use a different text font (e.g. bolded or italic) and contrasting colors.
Humans are visual creatures, which means (among other things) that we are naturally attracted to sharp variations in colors.
You can use this to your advantage by playing off different color contrasts. For example, if your landing page background is blue, you might make your CTA button orange so it really stands out.
You can also try using a free online color scheme generator to come up with ideas.
Source: https://www.shutterstock.com/blog/color-scheme-definitions-types-examples
Another way to make your CTA button stand out is to play with its size. Make it big enough to call attention but not so big that it becomes too distracting from reading the rest of the page.
By focusing on the visual design of your CTA button, you can increase the number of users that click on it.
When writing a call to action, it’s easy to resort to phrases like “contact us” or “learn more.” But such CTAs are so overused that many people gloss over them.
Instead, try to put yourself in your target audience’s shoes. What are their pain points? Then craft your CTA according to that.
For example, if your average customer has a hard time remembering birthdays, lure them in with a CTA that says “install this scheduling tool to never forget another birthday.” It’s much more specific and tailored to the user’s needs.
That said, you also need to make sure you keep your CTAs clear and to the point.
Most people skim the internet. So if your CTA is too long or clever, people will probably move on. And if you can’t convince them to click on your CTA the first time, they probably never will.
So make your CTA crystal clear. Say exactly what you want the visitor to do and exactly what they’ll get by clicking. Use action verbs to evoke a quick reaction.
By writing clearly and directly, your CTA will be much more persuasive.
The last thing you want is for visitors to be looking for a CTA on your landing page and not find it.
To ensure people always have the opportunity to click the CTA, place it somewhere it can always be seen. For example, you could include it in a floating header or footer that moves along the web page as the user scrolls up or down.
The point is you want the CTA to be visible, no matter where the user goes on the page. If you only place it at the end of the page, visitors may never get to it or see it.
The CTA should be easy to locate. So, place it where it makes the most sense.
That said, you don’t want to include so many CTAs that you come across as too pushy or spammy. This will only turn people off.
But you also don’t want users to leave your page without clicking on the CTA. Otherwise, what’s the point?
So, find the right CTA frequency balance.
Even if you place multiple CTAs across your landing page, you want to stick to just one kind. Here’s what I mean:
If the landing page’s main purpose is to get visitors to sign up for your newsletter, don’t also include CTAs to order a product off of your website.
You can have multiple CTAs, but they shouldn’t call on visitors to perform more than one action.
Why? Asking visitors to do more than one thing can be confusing. In fact, this may overwhelm them so that they don’t click on any CTAs at all.
If you have multiple marketing objectives, create separate landing pages for each of them. That way, each landing page is focused on one specific action.
Having an attractive CTA is not enough. You also need to direct visitors’ attention to it with visual cues.
You can do this in two ways: subtle or not-so-subtle cues.
A subtle visual cue could be images or converging lines whose linear pathways indirectly point toward the CTA—like a photo of someone whose eyes are looking at the CTA. Users will then subconsciously want to look there, too.
Source: https://instapage.com/blog/what-are-visual-cues
A conspicuous visual cue could be bright red arrows that point toward the CTA. This can also be effective, but you must be careful not to make it appear too distracting or promotional.
Whatever you do, you want your landing page to have a clean visual flow that ultimately directs users to the CTA button.
Another way to make your CTA stand out is to put white space around it.
White space (aka negative space) refers to the areas of your landing page that don’t have any text or images—nothing.
While you might think white space is a waste of precious real estate, it’s not. It actually helps provide some balance to your landing page and, if used artfully, can actually make your CTA stand out.
For one, if you leave a lot of white space around the CTA, it won’t look cluttered—like it’s drowning in text and graphics. Instead, it will stand out because it’s set off by itself.
Play with the white space around your CTA to call more attention to it.
Source: https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/the-power-of-white-space
To stand out, your CTA also has to offer something unique. What are the benefits of clicking on it? How will it improve your visitors’ lives? What’s in it for them? If your CTA doesn’t answer these questions, you may want to rethink it.
Consider your typical visitor’s pain points. Then show how your offer is a solution to their problems.
For example, if your CTA is to sign up for a weekly newsletter that offers actionable tips on how to double your productivity, point that out. In this case, your CTA might read “Sign Up for My Weekly Newsletter to 2X Your Productivity.”
At the end of the day, concrete and relevant benefits help sell visitors on your CTA.
People are heavily influenced by their emotions. Though the rational brain plays a role in the decision-making process, emotions play an arguably bigger one.
That’s why it’s important for your CTA to appeal to people’s emotions. If you tap into people’s emotions, visitors are more likely to pay attention and click.
For example, you might create a sense of urgency by promoting a limited-time offer. This may activate their fear of missing out (FOMO). Or you might appeal to their sense of danger with a CTA that says “Sign the Petition to Keep Your Neighborhood Safe.”
Don’t forget to also surround the CTA with relevant images (where appropriate).
So if, for example, the CTA calls on the reader to improve their life by getting a copy of your new self-help book, include a photo of someone reading the book with a smile on their face next to the CTA.
This will draw a more immediate emotional response from the user than words alone ever could. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words.
Last but not least, subject your landing page CTAs to A/B tests.
An A/B test (aka split test) refers to developing two slightly different versions of something (in this case a CTA) and then running a test to see which performs better according to common marketing metrics like click-through rate (CTR) and conversion rate.
You could test a CTA’s button size, copy, color, font, placement, page frequency, and more. Just make sure to test only one variable at a time so you can narrow down what exactly is contributing to a CTAs performance.
By constantly conducting A/B tests, you can gradually fine-tune your landing page CTA until it becomes a reliable conversion machine.
Now that you know the best practices for crafting effective PPC landing page CTAs, you’re ready to take your marketing to the next level.
Don’t have the time or manpower to handle your ad campaigns? That’s okay. We’re here to help.
Partner with PPC.co to take advantage of our managed PPC services. We can help you run ads across Google, Bing, Facebook, LinkedIn, and more. Whatever your advertising needs, we have you covered.
We’ll also help you optimize your landing page CTAs so that they bring you more business. To get started, contact us for a free proposal. We look forward to chatting!
Keywords are, arguably, the most important piece of your pay per click (PPC) advertising strategy.
Choose the right keywords and you’ll reach the right people. You’ll get more impressions and clicks. You’ll get more purchases from the clicks you generate. And you’ll even spend less money in the long run, since you won’t be wasting money on bad matches or weak opportunities.
The problem is, choosing and controlling keywords in PPC advertising is challenging.
Yes, even for the pros.
There are so many keywords to choose from and so many different controls you can use to tinker with your campaign that it’s almost inevitable to make conversion mistakes – and if not outright mistakes, then inefficiencies that reduce your potential.
Fortunately, once you understand some of the most common and impactful keyword mistakes in PPC advertising, you can take caution to avoid them and optimize your campaign for the better.
These are some of the most common keyword mistakes in PPC advertising we see from clients, competitors, and other advertisers online.
Optimizing a PPC ad campaign is all about improving efficiency. It’s almost impossible to be efficient if you’re using too many keywords at once. On one hand, we understand the temptation to keep adding keywords; each new keyword is a new potential demographic segment and a new opportunity for your brand. But it’s usually better to keep your selection of keywords relatively narrow and focused.
There are a few main problems with using too many keywords. For starters, your attention is going to be split across too many different areas; instead of becoming a true expert on a small handful of keywords, you’ll end up knowing very little about the dozens you’re following. Additionally, you’ll be wasting money on keywords that are strictly underperforming your best options.
If you want to fix this problem, simply focus on a narrower range of keywords. Generally, you should only keep the keywords that are generating around 200 clicks or more – and filter out any keywords that seem to perform worse than your best ones (as well as ones that seem irrelevant).
At first glance, using broad match keywords seems like a no brainer. With broad match turned on, your keywords are going to appear for a wide variety of different searches, including those that are synonymous with your main keyword and some types of related searches. That means your ad is going to appear to a wider range of people and earn more impressions.
However, using broad match keywords recklessly and without strategic focus is usually bad for your campaign. More isn’t always better in the world of PPC advertising; in fact, it’s usually worse. You’re better off targeting a small handful of people who are positioned to buy your product than targeting thousands of people who are practically irrelevant.
You can fix this in a few different ways. For example, you could stop leaning too heavily on broad match keywords and start focusing on phrase match and exact match keywords, which give you much more precise targeting options. You can also use broad match more effectively with the use of modifiers, which allow you to control how your keywords are considered with respect to user searches. As examples, adding a + to a word will ensure it appears in every search – and including phrases in [brackets] will make sure the entire phrase is present in every search.
Ad groups exist to give you more insight and control over your PPC ad campaigns, so try to avoid misusing them by compiling keywords into bulky and unnecessarily large groups. If you put all your conceivable targeting options into one gigantic mass, you’ll have difficulty delineating the different elements of your strategy.
Instead, make sure each of your ad groups is laser-focused on a specific theme (such as a product or service you offer, a geographic location, etc.). The exact theme doesn’t matter much, as long as you’re using ad groups strategically.
Most newcomers to the PPC game are so focused on finding the perfect keywords to add to their campaign that they don’t realize how powerful negative keywords can be. In case you aren’t familiar with them, negative keywords are keywords that you don’t want to appear for a given search. You can use these to filter out specific types of people who may not be interested in what you’re selling – and save money in the process.
If you don’t use negative keywords at all, you’re probably missing out on your true potential in this field. For example, imagine you’re advertising a bakery and you’re placing ads for people who are searching for “chocolate chip cookies.” You want to appeal to people who might buy your chocolate chip cookies, but people who search for this phrase might be looking for recipes or instructions for how to make their own; you can filter out this traffic simply by adding negative keywords like “-recipe.”
There’s a certain point in most PPC ad campaigns when managers begin to feel confident in what they’re doing. Your ads are working period you’re getting clicks. You can claim the campaign is profitable. What do you do at this point?
Novices are typically tempted to keep things running exactly as they are, potentially indefinitely. After all, if it ain’t broke, you don’t fix it, right?
The logic here makes sense, to a degree, but if you go this route, you’ll be crippling your potential. You’ll miss out on all the experiments that could push your campaign further and all the little refinements that could make your campaign even more efficient. Instead of remaining complacent with decent results, you should always strive for better results. That doesn’t mean you have to change your entire campaign, but you should be allocating at least a portion of your budget to pushing for more.
What’s your ad conversion rate like? If this metric is disappointingly low, it could be an indication that your ads aren’t relevant for the keywords you’re choosing. This may sound like a simple and obvious problem, but it’s something that many advertisers run into.
Remember, the people searching for this keyword phrase are looking for something specific. If your ad isn’t carefully crafted to appeal to those people, it’s not going to get much interaction. Always make sure that your keywords and advertisements are very closely aligned.
When it comes to audience targeting, you have to think beyond mere demographics. You also have to think beyond simple product or service searches. If you want to add more power to your campaign, you need to think about your specific sales funnel and how searchers might fall into that sales funnel.
Different businesses and different industries model their sales funnels in unique ways, but usually, sales funnels follow a process similar to awareness > consideration > purchase. Targeting the right people at the right stage of the sales funnel could dramatically increase your results. Choosing specific phrases and including keyword modifiers targeted to people at the end of the sales funnel could greatly increase the number of people making purchases after clicking your ads. At the same time, targeting people earlier in the sales funnel could help you avoid some of the most prominent competition in your industry, saving you money while earning you customer loyalty.
The only wrong approach is to ignore the sales funnel in your strategy entirely.
Landing pages play a massive role in determining the success of your PPC campaign. No matter how well your ads perform or how much traffic do you generate, your campaign is going to fall flat if you aren’t able to convert your new visitors.
The critical flaw here for most PPC advertisers is a landing page that doesn’t match the ad or doesn’t match the keyword phrase. If you promise a special discount in your ad, that discount better be present on your landing page. If you’re advertising running shoes, don’t take your visitors to a landing page that features boots.
Obviously, you’ll also need to spend time optimizing this landing page so it’s as persuasive and perceptibly trustworthy as possible.
The bulk of your campaign is going to focus on product and service keywords, but if you totally neglect brand keywords, you’ll be sabotaging your own potential.
Many people ignore brand keywords entirely because they feel like these targeting options are practically irrelevant. After all, if a customer already knows about your brand, there’s no use trying to raise their brand awareness further. And there’s a good chance your brand website is already ranking at position one for brand keyword searches.
However, there are some good reasons to bid on your own brand keywords. Branded keywords have the potential to increase your account’s quality score. They almost guarantee your brand will be featured at the top of the search results page. You’ll generate more traffic to your website. And perhaps best of all, this serves as a competitive defense – so your worst competitors can’t try and dethrone you by targeting your branded keywords.
Targeting competitor brand keywords, eh? If you’ve never considered the option before, you’re certainly considering it now. Bidding on the branded keywords of a competitor can be a powerful, if cutthroat move. You can siphon traffic from a major competitor, increasing your traffic while dealing a blow to your peers simultaneously.
However, it’s reckless to approach this without an effective strategy. If your ads aren’t relevant to the people conducting these searches, you’re not going to generate clicks, and your quality score could go down. If you don’t have a plan to convert these prospects, you’ll end up wasting money trying to sabotage competitors rather than building your own business. And the worst part is, if you’re actively trying to sabotage your competitors, you could end up harming your brand reputation.
None of this means that you have to avoid targeting competitor brand keywords. It just means you need to have a carefully considered strategy in place for them.
We’ve covered 10 of the most common mistakes that people make with keywords in the PPC world, but this list is by no means comprehensive. There are many other strategic flaws and examples of poor decision making that can negatively impact your campaign.
On top of that, the PPC ad world is always changing with new controls and features for advertisers, new competitors, and changing consumer attitudes.
If you want to avoid all PPC ad mistakes (or at least as many as possible), you should follow these important golden rules:
Are you tired of PPC advertising mistakes bogging down your otherwise profitable campaign?
Do you need some extra guidance in targeting the best possible PPC keywords?
PPC.co is here for you. We’ve got the experts. We’ve got the experience. All you need to do is reach out and we’ll send you a free proposal. Contact us today!
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